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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

#331

Post by kartan »

setquk wrote: post #98

It’s down to individuals rather than culture in these things. By purely statistics, an organisation of any size has less than ethical people in it even if they have the best outward impression. Unfortunately these sorts of people tend to favour power and slowly work their way to positions that give them that. Then the whole org is a bad apple. Having been in a similar situation before, the correct answer is “I’ll get…

> It’s down to individuals rather than culture in these things. By purely statistics, an organisation of any size has less than ethical people in it even if they have the best outward impression.

How the organisations react to that bad apples is what matters. I have seen companies ruined by half a dozen people that bully others, play office politics and blame games. Most of the people were fantastic, but the CEO will do nothing about this bullies in high positions.

If a company has no way of dealing with these people, the company does not deserve to survive. So, yes there are bad apples. But, the companies have the tools to make them correct their behaviour or get rid of them.

> It’s probably better to file patent first though.

Yes. Completely agree. Companies should play nice, but you should protect yourself just in case.

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

#332

Post by nathanasmith »

16bytes wrote: post #316
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

Disclaimer: I am a Google employee, who isn't listed as inventor on any patents here. I don't speak for Google and all the usual blah blah. In my experience outside of Google, typically how this works is that you will get a visit from product counsel asking if you have any patent-able work. It's not your job to ask if it's novel enough; that's the patent lawyers job. So they bug you for months while you are trying to…

>It doesn't make what happened here right, but I think it's unfair to assume malice.

I'll probably burn some Hacker News points here but the old adage needs to be updated. Never attribute to stupidity or malice what can be attributed to both stupidity and malice.

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

#333

Post by dahart »

armada651 wrote: post #182
jules wrote: post #134

If your country has "democratic" in the name it's probably not democratic. If your major has "science" in the name it's probably not science. If your company has "don't be evil" in its motto...

So Computer Science is Engineering?

> So Computer Science is Engineering?

Mostly, yes, especially as an undergrad. A science forms and tests hypotheses, usually about natural phenomena. I only had a few classes in CS where we tested any hypotheses or performed any real experiments. Most of it was design and learn by rote, and not experimentation.

Theoretic Computer Science is pretty sciencey but is testing things engineers built and often testing using math rather than experiment. Algorithms and data structures use the result of some science, but don’t teach or perform much science normally. Graphics involves a lot of cross-discipline physics and math, but in practice is teaching techniques and APIs, and doing very little scientific experimentation.

Machine learning may be bringing more science into computer science. People are certainly running lots of experiments in ML today trying to figure out how neural networks behave. A lot of it is still engineering too, of course, but there is some science in there.

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

#334

Post by mtarnovan »

neil_s wrote: post #212

I'm surprised this isn't mentioned, but there are a couple of possibilities here: a) the Google folks listed did actually steal the patent, as described b) the Google folks were working on this already, saw someone in academia that was doing very relevant work, and called them in to see if they'd like to join the team. Not clear how interview went. Unrelated to the interview, the team filed a patent when significant…

So we are really to believe that Google would have offered to include them on the patent application if they would have developed it independently?

edit: there are many other stories were Google behaved unethically around patent applications.

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

#335

Post by timdellinger »

m_mueller wrote: post #249
Waterluvian wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any man who must say, "I am the king" is no true king.

Also holds for someone saying "I'm intelligent" and "trust me".

Definitely true for anything named a "Center of Excellence"

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

#336

Post by monochromatic »

mdpopescu wrote: post #324
monochromatic wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could say the same thing about any form of property.

No, only about Imaginary Property.

No, it is literally true that the threat of state violence is what props up the ability to own any property.

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

#338

Post by mdpopescu »

monochromatic wrote: post #336
mdpopescu wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, only about Imaginary Property.

No, it is literally true that the threat of state violence is what props up the ability to own any property.

This is so obviously wrong I have no idea how to continue.

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

#339

Post by threatofrain »

vonmoltke wrote: post #245
pas wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

engineering is math too, math is eating everything, oh noes! but not really, that's software after all. engineering is applied math, so largely software modeling, whereas CS is theoretical work. abstract problems, pure solutions.

> engineering is applied math It's applied math and applied science. The science informs how to apply the math, since the math is a model of natural phenomena. In fact, most of the math came to engineering via the science.

I would argue that CS and type theory explores the very foundations of math.
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