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Court: Google infringed patents, must pay 1.36 percent of AdWords revenue

arstechnica.com

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Re: Court: Google infringed patents, must pay 1.36 percent of AdWords revenue

#61

Post by bsdetector »

dangrossman wrote: post #2

> Even though there was no evidence of copying—Vringo admitted as much What a ridiculous system we all operate under. You come up with a mathematical formula for ranking some text on a page (in this case, what ads to show first), and you could now owe $250M/year to some company you've never heard of because they already bought the rights to that formula. It turns my stomach; sorry that I have nothing of more substanc…

Just because the same thing can be invented independently doesn't mean the system is ridiculous. In fact, it's the very fact that the system relies on to create research competition.

Being the Vringo is the motivation to invent things before the competition does.

Re: Court: Google infringed patents, must pay 1.36 percent of AdWords revenue

#62

Post by MichaelGG »

thrownaway2424 wrote: post #32

Wow the Microsoft angle is pretty corrupt. They paid the plaintiff a million bucks plus 5% of the judgement they get against Google, effectively bankrolling their lawsuit and putting a patent troll on commission. There's near-endless bitching and whining about Google being evil these days, but even today nobody sinks as low as Microsoft.

I read that and thought, how funny if Google bought Vringo out, then determined Google owed $10B. Of course that'd mean paying Vringo, which is a vile thing.

I don't think it's corrupt though. Sounds like MS said hey, here's some money (versus losing a settlement for far more, like they did over XML), and if you win against Google, then we'll pay likewise. Otherwise, you'll fight both of us.

Of course it'd be nice if MS stood up and fought, but it's easy to say what other people should do with their billions.

Re: Court: Google infringed patents, must pay 1.36 percent of AdWords revenue

#63

Post by hkmurakami »

moca wrote: post #53

This is largely a showcase of stupid economy in United States. If you look back past 20 years, there really isn't any meaningful economy growth except the high tech industry. In most cases, you simply higher price for the same house, transportation, education, healthcare, food, lawsuit, and other BS. Instead of encouraging people and companies to do great things that actually improve living quality, the current econo…

iirc the finance industry grew a ton over the same time period.

Re: Court: Google infringed patents, must pay 1.36 percent of AdWords revenue

#64

Post by x0054 »

I tried really hard to understand the 2 patents in question in this case. I can see that both patents relate to a method of assigning value to search results based on how long a user spends looking at the result, or number of clicks, etc. But I am sure I am missing a bunch of nuances. Could someone with Patent background explain these to patents:

http://www.google.com/patents/US6314420 and http://www.google.com/patents/US6775664

Or maybe link me to the explanation. I am interested because from what I have understood this sounds really obvious, just application of good business practices to the internet. If customers like a particular product (click on one link a lot), you get more of that product (show the link more often), so you can sell more. Is there more to it? There has to be, right?

Re: Court: Google infringed patents, must pay 1.36 percent of AdWords revenue

#65

Post by MichaelGG »

magicalist wrote: post #24
Danieru wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google's corporate structure is designed to hide and move profit, not revenue. If this ruling is upheld we're talking a super-massive quantity of money going to someone who did nothing. And the patent system will still not get reformed.

It's also not even designed to hide or move US profit, so it's doubly irrelevant. Double Irish Dutch Sandwiches don't do anything for money made in the US.

Is it because Google operates servers and whatnot in the US that they couldn't sell all their ad inventory at $1 to their Ireland division or another company or something?

Re: Court: Google infringed patents, must pay 1.36 percent of AdWords revenue

#66

Post by MichaelGG »

protomyth wrote: post #45
ohashi wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So if Google took over the company and settled for paying a massive amount to them, this would in turn force Microsoft to pay 5% of that. Except anything Google paid, would essentially go back to Google. Could you bankrupt Microsoft this way?

No, the judge would alter his ruling because of a Microsoft appeal. Judges are remarkably unimpressed with such attempts to use their rulings like that.

What if Google had bought Vringo after the settlement with MS but before the judges ruling? Then it'd be a private contract?

Sort of the inverse of the Mosaic licensing, where Spyglass got a royalty off of IE revenue, and MS proceeded to give it away for free.

Re: Court: Google infringed patents, must pay 1.36 percent of AdWords revenue

#67

Post by andrewflnr »

bsdetector wrote: post #61
dangrossman wrote: post #2

> Even though there was no evidence of copying—Vringo admitted as much What a ridiculous system we all operate under. You come up with a mathematical formula for ranking some text on a page (in this case, what ads to show first), and you could now owe $250M/year to some company you've never heard of because they already bought the rights to that formula. It turns my stomach; sorry that I have nothing of more substanc…

Just because the same thing can be invented independently doesn't mean the system is ridiculous. In fact, it's the very fact that the system relies on to create research competition. Being the Vringo is the motivation to invent things before the competition does.

You seemed to have missed the part where Vringo bought the patents from Lycos, a company google killed on the open market by, in your terms, doing better research.

Re: Court: Google infringed patents, must pay 1.36 percent of AdWords revenue

#68

Post by andrewfong »

bsdetector wrote: post #61
dangrossman wrote: post #2

> Even though there was no evidence of copying—Vringo admitted as much What a ridiculous system we all operate under. You come up with a mathematical formula for ranking some text on a page (in this case, what ads to show first), and you could now owe $250M/year to some company you've never heard of because they already bought the rights to that formula. It turns my stomach; sorry that I have nothing of more substanc…

Just because the same thing can be invented independently doesn't mean the system is ridiculous. In fact, it's the very fact that the system relies on to create research competition. Being the Vringo is the motivation to invent things before the competition does.

Alternatively, it creates a motivation to not even try in the first place. If you've come up with an idea, there's a good chance someone else has as well. Why work on an invention if there's (1) a very good chance that someone else will get there first and (2) this will force you to toss all your work out the window, even if your implementation is better.

Moreover, the current system creates a perverse incentive to obfuscate your patent. Although all patents are (eventually) published, there's no requirement that they be published in a manner that's useful (no source code) or discoverable (non-standard jargon). The incentive is not always to make the patent well known until after a party has already invested significant resources into an enterprise, at which point the patent can be used for something pretty close to extortion.

Re: Court: Google infringed patents, must pay 1.36 percent of AdWords revenue

#69

Post by magicalist »

omegaworks wrote: post #60
saraid216 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It seems to be pretty well established now that this system does not support innovation (at least not in the software business. Back when I was actively studying this stuff, it was noted that there are four specific industries where intellectual property just doesn't work as intended. Software was one, pharma was another, and I forget the other two but a quick Google ought to surface them with more credibility than…

> pharma was another I thought pharma relied on patents to offset the massive cost of regulatory control over the product. (FDA fees, cost of running patient trials, etc)

Yeah, Judge Posner wrote an excellent post about how pharmaceuticals and software were basically polar opposites in their needs for patent protection:

http://www.becker-posner-blog.com/2012/09/do-patent-and-copy...

Re: Court: Google infringed patents, must pay 1.36 percent of AdWords revenue

#70

Post by fpgeek »

graving wrote: post #49
dangrossman wrote: post #2

> Even though there was no evidence of copying—Vringo admitted as much What a ridiculous system we all operate under. You come up with a mathematical formula for ranking some text on a page (in this case, what ads to show first), and you could now owe $250M/year to some company you've never heard of because they already bought the rights to that formula. It turns my stomach; sorry that I have nothing of more substanc…

They(and you), did hear of the company that originally got these patents. Here's the very interesting story behind the patents. http://techcrunch.com/2012/03/31/why-google-might-be-going-t... edit: I am rate limited from replying to fpgeeks reply below so I will post my reply here. First, the author is extremely clear that he invested in Vringo, in fact the whole article is about why he did so., so I am not sure why…

As magicalist notes below, the author of this story is an investor in Vringo.

Separately, given the allegations in the Ars comment thread:

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/01/court-orders-goog...

I'm more than a bit suspicious of a brand-new account that's posting pro-Vringo comments.

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