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Google Tried to Patent My Work After a Job Interview

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

#461

Post by malmsteen »

pmarreck wrote: post #361
paul7986 wrote: post #91

I met/had a similar experience with Google ATAP in 2013 (was Motorala ATAP then; Google recently bought them) though not for a job interview but to discuss working together to build our tech SpeakerBlast into the Moto X. They asked if we ever thought about selling our technology to them before the meeting and at the meeting they baited us for how our tech worked saying we'd like to work with you tell us how it works.…

This is a level of douchiness I cannot fathom. What possesses these people to act in this fashion and how do they sleep at night? How is this not seen as clearly unethical behavior? A clear violation of Wheaton's Law, here. I mean... I could easily take that lollipop from that naïve baby in that baby carriage... but I don't, simply because I'm Not A Dick™. Did all of Silicon Valley get the wrong takeaway from the App…

You are a Nice Guy (TM) but business is business

it's actually not a bad thing that it's one of the few places you can actually be an asshole without feeling bad for it though

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

#462

Post by epberry »

paul7986 wrote: post #91

I met/had a similar experience with Google ATAP in 2013 (was Motorala ATAP then; Google recently bought them) though not for a job interview but to discuss working together to build our tech SpeakerBlast into the Moto X. They asked if we ever thought about selling our technology to them before the meeting and at the meeting they baited us for how our tech worked saying we'd like to work with you tell us how it works.…

Nightmares.

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

#463

Post by jacques_chester »

2_listerine_pls wrote: post #256
hartator wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. Google should also probably take disciplinary actions.

You are kidding right? They even encourage it by making you sign a visitor agreement so that you have no right to the IP you discuss.

Invention is not the same as assignment. You can sign away assignment, but inventorship remains with the inventor(s).

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

#464

Post by api »

staticautomatic wrote: post #449
api wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ignore corporate claims such as "don't be evil." The problem isn't that those claims were lies. I'm sure Google's founders actually intended Google to "not be evil." The problem is that a corporation (or a government, university, church, fraternal organization, you name it) is made up of people. As such things get big they end up being made up of many, many people. Leaders change. Managers change. When an org gets bi…

So it's OK for them to be evil?

No, I'm saying you shouldn't take the words of corporations the same way you take the words of an individual person. A corporation is not even a singular entity. Corporations can't have values because they're composed of a rotating set of minds that may not all hold those values and there is no way of guaranteeing values will be preserved into the future.

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

#465

Post by nybble41 »

monochromatic wrote: post #460
nybble41 wrote: post #417

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What stops other people from taking your tangible property other than the threat of state action? Aside from morals, the threat of reciprocation , not by the state specifically but by the property owner who was harmed and anyone authorized to act on their behalf. Unlike actual property, IP isn't based on reciprocation. The penalties for infringement go way beyond simply losing similar forms of IP.

The penalty for stealing my TV might well include a bullet in the chest. I’m not sure what your point is.

That would simply be murder, not a just or reasonable response to someone stealing your TV. In any case it still doesn't involve any state action, so we appear to be in violent agreement that, contrary to your original assertion, the state is not the only thing stopping other people from taking your property.

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

#466

Post by marcosdumay »

scott_s wrote: post #423
marcosdumay wrote: post #414

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A physics or chemistry student is learning about empiricism on lab courses, and about how other scientists came-out with their advances. But more importantly, they are mostly studying science itself, not how use it to create practical stuff.

I don't disagree with your comment, and I don't think your comment disagrees with mine. I was agreeing with dahart that a computer science undergrad curriculum is mostly not about doing computer science, but then pointing that that is true for all sciences.

Most of the computer science curriculum is explicitly engineering. Even the courses we call theory are about how how to engineer better, more like what a mechanical engineer does when studying thermodynamics than what a physicist does when studying the same subject.

I do agree that none of them are doing science, but one is studying science itself, the other is studying a slightly different thing.

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

#467

Post by mirimir »

Veen wrote: post #125
rincebrain wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I learned English in the context of a native language with lots more structure about genders, forms, cases and tenses. So I guess that it was something my teachers missed. And I went from that to immersion in American culture.

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

#469

Post by grappler »

dang wrote: post #428
grappler wrote: post #409

Headline says “Company”. Article says “Google”. Is this being softened in Google's favor?

I think it's the other way around? I don't know why the article says 'company' but we changed the HN headline to 'Google' after it was posted here last night.

yeah I didn't mean HN was softening it; the article itself was softening it.

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

#470

Post by harrumph »

Addressing any shock and revulsion following this story:

Because capitalist organizations are literally founded upon the act of constant appropriation of the surplus value created by their own employees, it's not reasonable to expect these organizations to somehow indulge a higher standard of treatment toward outside persons who aren't even their employees, to persons who are just dropping by to share ideas and work. Such organizations will seize with both hands whatever of value is presented to them. They seize, that's what they do. All day, every day.

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