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Google Tried to Patent My Work After a Job Interview
121–130 of 510 posts
Re: Google Tried to Patent My Work After a Job Interview
#122Something 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…
In addition to what others have said, Reddit abandoned the idea of skimming affiliates shortly after announcing the plan. They have certainly not made millions.
Re: Google Tried to Patent My Work After a Job Interview
#123Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think the author is a she.
True, but I didn't see that she identified herself, or her gender, in the article. So what's a commenter to do? That's an honest question. Mangle to use "they"? Use some genderless pronoun that'll piss off x% of readers?
> True, but I didn't see that she identified herself, or her gender, in the article. So what's a commenter to do?
Simple.
1. Assume an ostensibly correct pronoun of your own choice (like you did)
2. If someone corrects you, optionally acknowledge the correction and apologize if applicable, then use the correct pronoun henceforth
3. Ignore the overly gender-obsessed people who tell you that you should have used ugly or cumbersome constructs such as "they" or, even worse, "s/he" and variants thereof.
4. Don't worry too much about it; everybody can make an honest mistake.
Re: Google Tried to Patent My Work After a Job Interview
#124Just a reminder that Google, or any company for that matter, has a fiduciary duty towards their shareholders to file a patent for everything they have learned about and that hasn't been patented yet.
There's a common myth that companies have "a fiduciary duty" to make as much money as possible (especially short-term), but this has no basis in law in the US. https://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-supreme-court/13-354.html "modern corporate law does not require for-profit corporations to pursue profit at the expense of everything else, and many do not do so... a for-profit corporation may take costly pollution-control and…
Thing is, if a CEO doesn't pursue profit and shareholder dividends above all else, they probably won't last long until the investors and board members vote them out.
Re: Google Tried to Patent My Work After a Job Interview
#125Earlier quoted context omitted.
In this case, you're right. Or at least, it's what I'd have done. Still, when I learned English, "they" wasn't singular. I guess that it's the norm now, but it still feels odd. And sometimes using it does require mangling. I'd rather have a set of gender-neutral pronouns, but hey.
Singular they dates back over 600 years, while the criticism of it dates back only a hundred or two. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singular_they
True, but it has no bearing on what this person was taught when they learned English. It's entirely plausible that some English teachers, influenced by the criticism that arose in the 19th Century, teach that singular they is to be avoided.
Re: Google Tried to Patent My Work After a Job Interview
#126There's a subtle-but-sneaky way to play this game.
Put in a patent application. Abandon it.
Congratulations, your patent is now going to come up in any competent patent examiner's initial search as "potential prior art".
Patent the core technology (the "you have to do it this way" stuff), but salt the earth around it so nobody can get a patent on the sub-optimal alternatives.
Also leave subtle but important details out of the application. Your conductive ink is silver but has to have, say, palladium added to make it stable? Forget to mention the palladium, and expand the claims to cover mixtures of different metals. See if the examiner allows it.
Re: Google Tried to Patent My Work After a Job Interview
#127Earlier quoted context omitted.
"Rational move". Think about that for a second. Morally wrong doesn't really reach anyone's mind these days.
How would it look if someone else got the patent and completely blocked Google? It's not even a question for large companies. The issue is this archaic patent and copyright system where someone "owns" an idea... Absurd.
It's not their work for starters.
Re: Google Tried to Patent My Work After a Job Interview
#128Did 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.
> Did you read Google's visitor agreement. You give up some IP rights by signing that. I guess the "don't be evil" thing is already well down the toilet. What's that all about? A new form of tribute when you're called upon to kiss Google's ring?
You skipped over the interesting bit: "they just give you a badge that said you didn't sign".
Re: Google Tried to Patent My Work After a Job Interview
#129Earlier quoted context omitted.
Thomas Edison had a great resume.
He also ‘railroad others and use people as stepping stones to your way to the top‘ so that’s not a counter argument.
I think the argument was that he did precisely that. Yet history paints him as a great inventor (he was, and filed a lot of patents), and most people likely think of him as a "good/nice guy" which he may or may not have been.
Re: Google Tried to Patent My Work After a Job Interview
#130Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think the author is a she.
True, but I didn't see that she identified herself, or her gender, in the article. So what's a commenter to do? That's an honest question. Mangle to use "they"? Use some genderless pronoun that'll piss off x% of readers?
> "So what's a commenter to do"
Simply don't assume? It's not hard.