Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Google Tried to Patent My Work After a Job Interview

patentpandas.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 510 posts

Re: Google Tried to Patent My Work After a Job Interview

#51

Post by ce4 »

CryoLogic wrote: post #32
anilgulecha wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the specific idea: The idea is not unique, and really low hanging fruit for a mass site.

At the time, I could not find a single social media site that was using link-rewriting to make affiliate money. Blogs and fan sites for niche products had been using this to make money for a while, social media sites had not yet tried it. The close proximity with the announcement and my interview is what really bothered me. I have a strong feeling (but cannot prove) that someone I interviewed with took the idea and r…

Think of it from another angle: You're interviewing this guy that has this idea that would be hugely rewarding for you with a payout of n% if you proposed it via the internal idea program. No one will notice. Or hire that guy and leave that to him.

Re: Google Tried to Patent My Work After a Job Interview

#52

Post by gammateam »

> More importantly, sharing work publicly keeps the project can alive and inspires others to continue developing!

Which a patent does too, just with a license or 20 years later. It keeps people from reinventing the wheel and gives the disclosure rights even if they didn't have the infrastructure to create or monetize on their own. This isn't one of those nefarious software patents where the whole thing would be obsolete within 5 years, this is LED books, which simply becomes more feasible as transistor sizes shrink and battery technology improves, perfect for a 20 year exclusivity period before falling into the public domain where it can be vastly more practical to create in 2033.

Re: Google Tried to Patent My Work After a Job Interview

#53

Post by CryoLogic »

amenod wrote: post #48
CryoLogic wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At the time, I could not find a single social media site that was using link-rewriting to make affiliate money. Blogs and fan sites for niche products had been using this to make money for a while, social media sites had not yet tried it. The close proximity with the announcement and my interview is what really bothered me. I have a strong feeling (but cannot prove) that someone I interviewed with took the idea and r…

Not sure if it helps, but - sometimes the time is just right for some ideas and they crop all over the place. While it may seem to you it was your idea, they could have been working on it for days / months / years... I agree it sucks for you not to be able to know that though.

Yeah it is definitely possible it was just a coincidence. But that was a couple years ago, and if Amazon has taught me anything it's that backstabbing is definitely part of the culture in many of these tech companies.

While it could be totally an accident, I could also see it being stolen. Truth is, I will never know if it was just bad timing or an actual malicious interviewer.

Re: Google Tried to Patent My Work After a Job Interview

#54

Post by lagomorph »

I'm not knowledgeable enough to talk about patents and corporations and prior art, but I did want to mention that that tech is really neat. As the parent of young kids, the intersection of storytelling, education and technology is fascinating to me, especially in the era of Youtubers and Netflix and other passive experiences.

Kudos for creating something engaging and interesting.

Re: Google Tried to Patent My Work After a Job Interview

#55

Post by Bootvis »

CalChris wrote: post #34

Regina Dugan is a former head of DARPA as well as ATAP. She has an impressive resume. Why would she do something like this? For a not particularly important patent, LED popup books? It seems bizarre. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regina_E._Dugan

They thought they could get away with it.

Re: Google Tried to Patent My Work After a Job Interview

#56

Post by rurban »

CalChris wrote: post #34

Regina Dugan is a former head of DARPA as well as ATAP. She has an impressive resume. Why would she do something like this? For a not particularly important patent, LED popup books? It seems bizarre. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regina_E._Dugan

Someone needs to add this incident to her Wikipedia page.

Re: Google Tried to Patent My Work After a Job Interview

#57

Post by olefoo »

gammateam wrote: post #52

> More importantly, sharing work publicly keeps the project can alive and inspires others to continue developing! Which a patent does too, just with a license or 20 years later. It keeps people from reinventing the wheel and gives the disclosure rights even if they didn't have the infrastructure to create or monetize on their own. This isn't one of those nefarious software patents where the whole thing would be obsol…

It does seem odd to stick with an intellectual property system that is so obviously deficient in it's stated purpose of "improving the useful arts and sciences". Current patent law amounts to a barrier to entry for most small potential competitors in any market where defensible IP is required. Big companies can cross-license or litigate around issues but small players are locked out of the markets they might want to compete in because the costs are prohibitive. Yet another example of the American system having failed to protect competition and encouraging cartelisation.

Re: Google Tried to Patent My Work After a Job Interview

#58

Post by TheDong »

lkdjjdjjjdskjd wrote: post #44

It could just be people independently working on the same things, as is common in technology.

For the purpose of a patent, that doesn't help.

"Independent creation" is a valid defense for copyright, but not for patents.

Something cannot be patented if prior art exists before the filing of the patent. It doesn't matter if you knew about it. Even if you can prove that the prior art is not something you were aware of at the time you filed for a patent, your patent is invalid.

That's how patents are supposed to work; inventions must be "non-obvious" to the point where no one else has ever created it nor described it before on the entire planet.

If google knows that someone else has created such things (as they must have after said visit), the only responsible thing to do is not file a patent, regardless of if they independently worked on it.

Re: Google Tried to Patent My Work After a Job Interview

#59

Post by WalterBright »

CryoLogic wrote: post #20

Something very similar happened to me. When I was at university studying CS I was running a Arduino fansite and a fansite for a videogame - both of whom made most of their money from affiliate revenue (a couple hundred bucks per month). I thought it would be cool to work at Reddit (was close to graduating), and I had read blog posts from here and various other sites and IRC about how hiring managers liked projects. I…

It's not just corporations, it's companies and individuals in general. It has happened to me a lot.

Ironically, making my stuff open source has cut down a lot on that. (Github leaves a clear provenance trail.)

Re: Google Tried to Patent My Work After a Job Interview

#60

Post by ykonstant »

Animats wrote: post #22

Did you sign Google's visitor agreement? Did you read Google's visitor agreement. You give up some IP rights by signing that. This is a case where it matters. When I visited Google, I refused to sign. They just give you a badge that said you didn't sign.

Do you need to sign in blood, or is blue ink ok?
Post reply on HN