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Vigilante engineer stops Waymo from patenting key lidar technology

arstechnica.com

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Re: Vigilante engineer stops Waymo from patenting key lidar technology

#101

Post by sir-alien »

Although some engineers may disagree, this is one of the reasons I believe engineering should NOT be a protected industry/profession. Fine if the title was but not the action of doing it.

I read a story about someone showing flaws in a USA traffic light system and he was subsequently fined for "illegal engineering" which is the most idiotic thing ever.

Going on current USA progression it won't be long before you get 10 years behind bars for "illegal engineering" in some states.

Wasn't even that long ago. https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/04/29/engineer_fined_for_...

Re: Vigilante engineer stops Waymo from patenting key lidar technology

#102

Post by 1_player »

rcxdude wrote: post #99
1_player wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

See, I'm being absolutely cynical and tongue-in-cheek here, but my understanding about the modern law is that lawyers aren't fighting for the "truth" or "common good" nor they are in the "righting wrongs" business. Their only job is doing whatever the client wants done. A _good lawyer_ wins a case even when it's total bollocks. The fact that it is bollocks is not a concern at any level. https://youtu.be/oYj7q_by_2E?t…

This is how adversarial justice systems are supposed to operate. The idea being that you get lawyers advocating in the best possible way for either side, so the argument is 'fair'. This is in comparison to an inquisitorial system, where one party is charged with investigating the case and exposing the 'truth'. This is more prone to bias and ability on that one party but it does generally mean that the level of resour…

Makes sense, I'm not very informed on justice systems.

What concerns me is, with such a system, when A wins a case against B, we (the vast populace) deduce that A was in the right / B was wrong.

In many cases, if A wins a case, it's just because they lied better than B. It does not prove anything more than that.

Re: Vigilante engineer stops Waymo from patenting key lidar technology

#103

Post by kodablah »

ChrisSD wrote: post #93
jonathanstrange wrote: post #67

If the US patent office did their job, then there would be no need for "vigilante" engineers. Maybe the reporting of the patent situation is a bit biased but from what I've heard over the years it appears to me that every second patent should be invalid and has prior art.

That would require someone to pay the US patent office to do their jobs. I believe paying for government services is considered a contentious issue in the USA.

Nope, overpaying, or having a system too large (requiring large pay), or not requiring users of the system pay are contentious.

Re: Vigilante engineer stops Waymo from patenting key lidar technology

#104

Post by jsjohnst »

ChrisSD wrote: post #93
jonathanstrange wrote: post #67

If the US patent office did their job, then there would be no need for "vigilante" engineers. Maybe the reporting of the patent situation is a bit biased but from what I've heard over the years it appears to me that every second patent should be invalid and has prior art.

That would require someone to pay the US patent office to do their jobs. I believe paying for government services is considered a contentious issue in the USA.

> That would require someone to pay the US patent office to do their jobs.

You mean like charging a fee[0] for using the USPTO?

[0] https://www.uspto.gov/learning-and-resources/fees-and-paymen...

Re: Vigilante engineer stops Waymo from patenting key lidar technology

#105

Post by drhodes »

ChrisSD wrote: post #93
jonathanstrange wrote: post #67

If the US patent office did their job, then there would be no need for "vigilante" engineers. Maybe the reporting of the patent situation is a bit biased but from what I've heard over the years it appears to me that every second patent should be invalid and has prior art.

That would require someone to pay the US patent office to do their jobs. I believe paying for government services is considered a contentious issue in the USA.

> A quick review of the budget and supporting Commerce Department Appendix suggests the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has received everything it requested ($3,586,193,000), and will not suffer the indignity of fee diversion...

https://www.ipwatchdog.com/2017/05/23/uspto-3-6-billion-pres...

more about the fee diversion

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Patent_and_Trade...

The USPTO isn't mentioned in the congressional budget resolutions

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_United_States_federal_bud...

> Congress Approves $1.3 Trillion Spending Bill, Averting a Shutdown

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/22/us/politics/house-passes-...

Re: Vigilante engineer stops Waymo from patenting key lidar technology

#106

Post by rando444 »

calcifer wrote: post #38
discjockeydom wrote: post #22

I have actually reviewed this man's supposedly vigilante's submission to the USPTO and it is clear that this story is not what it seems. The document is a highly professional 95+ page document of complex legal argumentation that only a law firm with a small team of lawyers with a lot of prior experience doing this could have put together. It contains lots of lawyer speak and contemporary argumentation that a lay pers…

It is really funny that a conspiracy theory posted by an anonymous person with no backing evidence whatsoever is sitting at the top of this thread.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_the_stone

If you're going to argue against an assertion, you should include an argument.

Re: Vigilante engineer stops Waymo from patenting key lidar technology

#107

Post by [deleted] »

simias wrote: post #96
coldtea wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's as if people can still think for themselves and make arguments from the available information (even if they prove to be wrong), instead of expecting the final story to be handed down to them... The reference to the "95+ page document of complex legal argumentation"? That's evidence in support of the claim in the comment. Parent didn't make up that it's a complex lengthy legal document themselves. Sure, the theor…

The original poster doesn't provide any substantive evidence of what they're claiming (since then they've posted a link to the document without further discussion). They have an account with very little activity so we don't really know who they are or how knowledgeable (and how biased) they are on these issues. I think some skepticism is very much warranted and I don't understand why their comment sits at the top of…

[deleted]

Re: Vigilante engineer stops Waymo from patenting key lidar technology

#108

Post by mtarnovan »

rando444 wrote: post #106
calcifer wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is really funny that a conspiracy theory posted by an anonymous person with no backing evidence whatsoever is sitting at the top of this thread.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_the_stone If you're going to argue against an assertion, you should include an argument.

The argument was implicit: he called it a conspiracy theory.

A conspiracy theory is an explanation of an event or situation that invokes a conspiracy [...] without credible evidence.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conspiracy_theory

Re: Vigilante engineer stops Waymo from patenting key lidar technology

#109

Post by drakenot »

writepub wrote: post #29
isatty wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn’t matter - he saw something anyone with EE101 should’ve spotted from the rewrite, stuck with his guns for no personal gain and won. I would love to have that much attention to detail (or even in the interest in reading through the patent).

It matters. Of all possible patents to invalidate, why this one? Uber - one of the world's most valuable private companies, doesn't need help with patent law.

Apparently they do considering they hadn’t submitted their own reexamination request of the patent in question that inevitably led to Waymo dropping the patent claim.

Re: Vigilante engineer stops Waymo from patenting key lidar technology

#110

Post by snowwrestler »

choonway wrote: post #68
fapjacks wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, I am pretty good friends with a civil engineer that did something almost exactly like this for a friend of his. He did this in his spare time and having no prior experience with the niche industry and law his friend's company operated in (botanical health supplements). The people from the federal government involved in the complaint did not believe he wasn't a specialized lawyer with a team of assistants. D…

if a dedicated civil engineer can pick up some law books and make it seem he was some high powered lawyer team, can a dedicated lawyer pick up some engineering books and build a bridge that can survive SF's 'Big One'?

Seems to me he could almost certainly design a bridge with resistance to failure due to an earthquake. The material and principles involved in designing earthquake resistant structures are well understood and publicly available. The primary constraints on such structures are the cost and time to build them.

As for surviving "the big one"... it depends on how big? I'm not sure humanity in general knows how to build a bridge that could survive a dozen meters of shift between its piers. But that is a possibility in the largest conceivable earthquakes.

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