When patents attack Android • Hacker News Board

Re: When patents attack Android

#81

Post by dangrossman » Wed, Aug 03, 2011, 9:00 PM UTC

chocopuff wrote: post #73

mithaler wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand your comment. The OP is about Android being attacked through patents instead of through innovation, and you don't seem to be denying that that's what's happening. The article doesn't claim that "Google is always good", nor even that Google never uses anti-competitive practices. So what exactly are you objecting to? I don't think anyone here needs to be reminded that Google is a business and wants t…

The hypocrisy is unbelievable: Google is a major investor in patent troll firm Intellectual Ventures. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intellectual_Ventures http://www.techflash.com/seattle/2011/05/intellectual-ventur... Amazon, Apple, Cisco, eBay, Microsoft, etc. are also investors but they are not acting like whiny babies and acting all high and mighty going around preaching about how patents are destroying innovation.…

1) Google needs patents to stay in business because other companies have patents to use against them.

2) See #1. Stanford owns the patent on PageRank because it was developed by Stanford graduate students on an NSF research grant. Not really relevant.

Re: When patents attack Android

#82

Post by JunkDNA » Wed, Aug 03, 2011, 9:01 PM UTC

jerf wrote: post #65

Is this why we're seeing a sudden burst of anti-patent news? Is Google in the early phases of drumming up grassroots support for a direct assault on software patents in general, without their name being on the effort? Is this post actually move 3 instead of move 1? Honest questions, BTW, if there's anybody with answers who are allowed to give answers...

Astute observation. Reminds me of this pg classic on PR:

http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html

The timing is certainly convenient for Google.

Re: When patents attack Android

#83

Post by hn_decay » Wed, Aug 03, 2011, 9:01 PM UTC

Steko wrote: post #80

slackerIII wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you know it is willful? That is an important word when it comes to patent infringement.

I don't claim to know anything. I assumed it's willful because it's been a repeated pattern of behavior and because of the full court propaganda press they have been making against patents.

This is an incredible claim. Do you realize that Apple and Microsoft are being sued constantly as well?

Re: When patents attack Android

#84

Post by jannes » Wed, Aug 03, 2011, 9:02 PM UTC

They clearly listened to This American Life's piece on patents. That title can't be coincidence. They just appended the word "Android" to it. :-)

Re: When patents attack Android

#85

Post by VladRussian » Wed, Aug 03, 2011, 9:02 PM UTC

MikeCapone wrote: post #19

cma wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They sure touted their PageRank patent.

To me, that one seems to actually be a non-obvious, patentable idea. It made the world a better place. This isn't 1-click checkout or clickable phone numbers on a smart phone... But I don't think Google actually sued anyone when most other search engines started using that method. Correct me if I'm wrong.

evaluating/rating articles on the base of references and citations of them in other articles has been a useful and known practice in academia. Applying it to web pages was innovative (compare with original _invention_ of such algorithm for the scientific articles), yet doesn't seems to be something that warrants involvement of government force to keep others from applying the same academia article evaluation principles to web pages.

Re: When patents attack Android

#86

Post by rtrunck » Wed, Aug 03, 2011, 9:02 PM UTC

chaz wrote: post #18

cma wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They sure touted their PageRank patent.

The patent is owned by Stanford. From Wikipedia: The name "PageRank" is a trademark of Google, and the PageRank process has been patented (U.S. Patent 6,285,999). However, the patent is assigned to Stanford University and not to Google. Google has exclusive license rights on the patent from Stanford University. The university received 1.8 million shares of Google in exchange for use of the patent; the shares were sol…

Being an exclusive licensee provides significant rights to Google, for example, they could sue for infringement of that patent.

Re: When patents attack Android

#87

Post by patrickaljord » Wed, Aug 03, 2011, 9:02 PM UTC

danilocampos wrote: post #72

patrickaljord wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You left out the part where it says that a patent troll can be defined by any of these points. Therefore only quoting the one I did was enough to define Microsft and Apple as patent trolls.

But that's obvious. The point here is that patent trolling exists on a spectrum. While Apple and Microsoft may have a tenuous qualification, when I say patent troll most people who follow this stuff will think Nathan Myhrvold, not Steve Jobs. It's same way that calling both a jaywalker and a burglar criminals just because both have committed acts against the law dilutes the word "criminal."

So when Apple and Microsoft buy bankrupted company's patents and use them to sue Google, they are not patent trolling? What are they then? Innovating? This is plain patent trolling and make those two companies effective patent trolls no matter how you try to turn the story. Even if they are innovating on other fronts. Just like I can save someone's life one day and kill someone the next day. That doesn't mean I'm not a killer because I'm a humanist on a good day.

Re: When patents attack Android

#88

Post by nitrogen » Wed, Aug 03, 2011, 9:02 PM UTC

AllenKids wrote: post #55

nitrogen wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...Android has no inherent right to be free. The core idea of Free Software is the notion that one's own creations have every right to be free. If I create something independently, it is my right to give it away for free. Why should some other company I've never heard of and/or never done business with get to charge license fees for something I created myself, without their help?

See the problem is quite a few companies do not think Android is 100% Google's own creation. Oracle is asking a price for the Java part. Apple does not want its own UI to be a part. And FSM knows what parts Microsoft feels entitled to.

Regarding Apple's UI claims, IIUC that's mostly against Samsung's modifications of Android. Further, how many ways can you arrange finger-sized square icons on a portrait-mode screen? If two phones have two screens of similar size, and one puts 48x48 (or whatever) pixel icons on them, they will form similar grids.

Oracle is another matter entirely, and arguing that case requires discussing whether an unoriginal programming language and associated virtual machine should be patentable. Oracle gets no sympathy from me because of the way they've treated the various communities that built up around Sun's products, but beyond that, I think a rational case can be made that Google's independent implementation of a register-based VM should not be seen as infringing patents on Java's stack-based VM, and/or that Java's patents cover things that are obvious or non-novel.

Re: When patents attack Android

#89

Post by danilocampos » Wed, Aug 03, 2011, 9:04 PM UTC

patrickaljord wrote: post #87

danilocampos wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But that's obvious. The point here is that patent trolling exists on a spectrum. While Apple and Microsoft may have a tenuous qualification, when I say patent troll most people who follow this stuff will think Nathan Myhrvold, not Steve Jobs. It's same way that calling both a jaywalker and a burglar criminals just because both have committed acts against the law dilutes the word "criminal."

So when Apple and Microsoft buy bankrupted company's patents and use them to sue Google, they are not patent trolling? What are they then? Innovating? This is plain patent trolling and make those two companies effective patent trolls no matter how you try to turn the story. Even if they are innovating on other fronts. Just like I can save someone's life one day and kill someone the next day. That doesn't mean I'm not…

> So when Apple and Microsoft buy bankrupted company's patents and use them to sue Google

Has this happened?

Re: When patents attack Android

#90

Post by AllenKids » Wed, Aug 03, 2011, 9:05 PM UTC

azakai wrote: post #70

AllenKids wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Me think Sun's java patents are very non-trivial. But legally speaking, none of us have the authority to determine what qualifies as trivial. Google certainly has the fund to battle it out and demands re-examination of every patents involved. Just recently Apple got USPTO to declare several S3 patents invalid. Just do it.

> But legally speaking, none of us have the authority to determine what qualifies as trivial. Technically we can be sued and the court will decide what is 'trivial'. But that is completely messed up. We, the software engineers, know what is trivial or not in our field - software engineering. If lawyers decide what is trivial and what isn't in software, then every software engineer founding a startup needs a lawyer to…

What's obvious and trivial to professionals may not be trivial at all in common sense. What's obvious and trivial after the fact may not be trivial at all before someone come up with it in the first place.

The question remains to what extend do we protect IP so the system yields net benefit to the society, not the opposite?

I have no answer, but I'm Chinese, I've witnessed a complete disregard for IP in practice facilitates intellectual cesspool and general lack of innovation. I hesitate to join the chant for total software patents abolishment.