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What happens if Uber just pleads guilty, in order to get back to work ASAP? They lose important patents. And then, the victor is obligated by patent law to lice
by devrandomguy 9y ago
What happens if Uber just pleads guilty, in order to get back to work ASAP? They lose important patents. And then, the victor is obligated by patent law to license patents at a reasonable price, by some unknown definition of reasonable?
It looks to me like Uber could take another PR hit, burn a $billion or more on the fallout, raise more billions, and keep on going. Have ethically motivated boycotts ever worked out, historically?
- ajdlinux 9y agoIsn't this a trade secrets case, not a patent case?
- devrandomguy 9y agoIt is both. What happens if they admit to stealing trade secrets, and clearly intend to continue to compete in the market? Could the judge literally kick them out of the industry, or force the company to disband by labeling it an illegal organization?
- ajdlinux 9y agoI imagine injunctive relief is an option for Waymo that could limit Uber's options for some time.
- stale2002 9y agoOK, it is not THAT bad. The very worst worst case scenario is that Uber would be barred from using rotating, parabolic, Lidars. But there are a lot of other ways of making self driving cars that don't use this specific method of sensor technology. Uber could even just come to an agreement with Google, and license the technology.
- memmcgee 9y agoIt very much looks like Uber did this premeditated and that Travis and the Otto guy planned this while he was still at Google. It is VERY bad for Uber and they could get hit with much worse than just being banned from using a specific technology. The judge has already referred the case to the USA's office for possible criminal charges. Maybe we'll actually see an executive thrown in jail for once.
- smoodles 9y agowhile I'd love to see this, I think that is highly doubtful :(
- woodandsteel 9y agoWhy do you think it is highly doubtful?
- memmcgee 9y agoBecause Wall Street executives caused the economy to collapse and only one of them got thrown in jail. Executives only end up in jail when they hurt the rich (see: Enron, Bernie Madoff)
- woodandsteel 9y agoBut Uber is not a Wall Street firm. And Google claims Uber has hurt it, and Google is very rich.
- Gibbon1 9y agoSomeone I know worked for a tech company in the valley back in the eighties that made high end medical equipment. They caught an American and Japanese company trying to reverse engineer one of their products. End result was both companies were bared from that market for something like 15 years.
- tomp 9y agoWhy is reverse engineering illegal (unless covered by a patent)?
- smoodles 9y agoMy recollection is reverse engineering is legal, but it needs to be done carefully. Using staff that designed the "thing" you are trying to reverse engineer is not part of the doing it carefully bit...
- cbr 9y agoThis story is missing something, since reverse engineering is legal and done properly [1] gets you around copyrights and trade secrets. We're patents involved? [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clean_room_design https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clean_room_design
- amyjess 9y agoMy guess is corporate espionage. For them to get an injunction like this, they probably paid members of the engineering team to give them proprietary information.
- FireBeyond 9y agoYou're going to have a hard time proving it was done properly, clean room, etc, when one of the heads of your department on the topic was a key engineer of the technology you are supposedly reverse engineering when he worked on it at the competitor who developed it.
- 9y ago
- CaptainZapp 9y agoHave ethically motivated boycotts ever worked out, historically? Yes, but very rarely. For example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nestl%C3%A9_boycott https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nestl%C3%A9_boycott
- diN0bot 9y agoalso look up the 1965 boycott of california grapes (and in general the worker's strike and organizing efforts by cesar chavez and dolores huerta). organizing works! for anyone interested in more modern day wins, check out "when we fight we win" by greg jobin-leeds and agiarte.
- chimeracoder 9y ago> also look up the 1965 boycott of california grapes (and in general the worker's strike and organizing efforts by cesar chavez and dolores huerta). On the other hand, not all of Chavez's boycotts were successful. That includes his final effort, a hunger strike which ultimately killed him (aside from his own death, it was not a particularly successful boycott otherwise either).
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- alphonsegaston 9y agoIt's actually not at all that rare, especially if you shift your lens beyond the US. But even here, groups like the Coalition of Immokalee workers have used boycotts to win better conditions for the workers they represent. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coalition_of_Immokalee_Workers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coalition_of_Immokalee_Workers
- askvictor 9y agoI don't think a patent holder is obligated to license a patent unless it is part of a technical standard.
- pgeorgi 9y agoAnd even then only because _they_ agreed to it for the particular instance. You can't define a standard that uses tech described in your competitors patents and then force them to license those.
- aetherson 9y agoYes, you are correct. Standards Essential Patents are a subclass of normal patents. They are the only ones that the holder is obligated to license out. Normal patents carry no obligation to license them under any terms, much less "reasonable" ones.
- stale2002 9y agoUber has taken enough PR hits that one more won't matter. What matters is whether Uber will receive an injection on their self driving car project. The autonomous vehicle war is going to be over in under 5 years. Uber is all in on that, and they cannot afford to be delayed by any amount of time that is measured in years.
- AnimalMuppet 9y ago> ... and they cannot afford to be delayed by any amount of time that is measured in years. And maybe not by a matter of time measured in months. But how long do court cases take? Years, not months (especially if Google decided to try to make it take longer).
- TheCondor 9y agoI thought this was ip theft. Google likely didn't patent Crown Jewels, they keep it secret. What about misappropriated code? Patents seem like it would be a much more simple situation.
- nradov 9y agoThe defendant in a civil case can't plead guilty. They are free to admit liability and do or pay whatever the plaintiff is asking for (not likely to happen), at which point the case would effectively end.