Vigilante engineer stops Waymo from patenting key lidar technology
1–10 of 25 posts
Re: Vigilante engineer stops Waymo from patenting key lidar technology
#2This is so typical in technology now, large corporations patenting everything they can possibly think of, including things that they've blatantly copied. It absolutely doesn't surprise me that a technology as fundamentally simple and foundational as LIDAR is covered by a load of bullshit patents. As the article notes what this is really about is using your patents to litigate competitors either to slow their progress or force them into expensive fights that drain their resources. Frankly, patent reform is yet another case where the large players have built themselves a moat.
Re: Vigilante engineer stops Waymo from patenting key lidar technology
#3What if patent applications required a fee that was added to a bounty fund to reward people that could demonstrate prior art during the examination period? Engineers like Swildens would then be more than interested bystanders, but have skin in the game and therefore incentive to do what he did just out of interest.
Bounty claims could also require an accompanying fee, to be refunded if the claim succeeds. The fees would discourage low quality patent applications and bounty claims.
Re: Vigilante engineer stops Waymo from patenting key lidar technology
#4What if patent applications required a fee that was added to a bounty fund to reward people that could demonstrate prior art during the examination period? Engineers like Swildens would then be more than interested bystanders, but have skin in the game and therefore incentive to do what he did just out of interest. Bounty claims could also require an accompanying fee, to be refunded if the claim succeeds. The fees wo…
I don't think this would work. If the fee was too high, then smaller companies and individuals would be locked out of patents. If the fee is too low, then it doesn't matter and large companies will continue business as usual.
Re: Vigilante engineer stops Waymo from patenting key lidar technology
#5> He then spent $6,000 of his own money to launch a formal challenge to 936.
Either he has a lot of spare time and money or this isn't the full story.
Re: Vigilante engineer stops Waymo from patenting key lidar technology
#6What if patent applications required a fee that was added to a bounty fund to reward people that could demonstrate prior art during the examination period? Engineers like Swildens would then be more than interested bystanders, but have skin in the game and therefore incentive to do what he did just out of interest. Bounty claims could also require an accompanying fee, to be refunded if the claim succeeds. The fees wo…
I don't think this would work. If the fee was too high, then smaller companies and individuals would be locked out of patents. If the fee is too low, then it doesn't matter and large companies will continue business as usual.
Make the bounty $10000 * sqrt(# patents owned by applicant)
Re: Vigilante engineer stops Waymo from patenting key lidar technology
#7What if patent applications required a fee that was added to a bounty fund to reward people that could demonstrate prior art during the examination period? Engineers like Swildens would then be more than interested bystanders, but have skin in the game and therefore incentive to do what he did just out of interest. Bounty claims could also require an accompanying fee, to be refunded if the claim succeeds. The fees wo…
I don't think this would work. If the fee was too high, then smaller companies and individuals would be locked out of patents. If the fee is too low, then it doesn't matter and large companies will continue business as usual.
The important part is the payout to people finding prior art, less so the disincentive to file patents that don't hold up. So this could be financed through insurance: patent filers could insure against bounty payments.
Re: Vigilante engineer stops Waymo from patenting key lidar technology
#8> He then spent $6,000 of his own money to launch a formal challenge to 936. Either he has a lot of spare time and money or this isn't the full story.
It appears he has lots of spare time and money, and perhaps a grudge about big companies and patents.
https://www.wired.com/story/eric-swildens-uber-waymo-lawsuit...
Re: Vigilante engineer stops Waymo from patenting key lidar technology
#9> He then spent $6,000 of his own money to launch a formal challenge to 936. Either he has a lot of spare time and money or this isn't the full story.
> Either he has a lot of spare time and money.
He probably has! https://www.wired.com/story/eric-swildens-uber-waymo-lawsuit...
And previous discussion on this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15875685
Re: Vigilante engineer stops Waymo from patenting key lidar technology
#10> He then spent $6,000 of his own money to launch a formal challenge to 936. Either he has a lot of spare time and money or this isn't the full story.
People spend more on cars, fancy PCs and such, I don't think 6k would be hard for someone making, let's say 100k/yr if they were really determined