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Well, the us has moved to first to file. It could be they are just protecting it from being patented by someone else. Also, until you see the patent app, you

Well, the us has moved to first to file. It could be they are just protecting it from being patented by someone else. Also, until you see the patent app, you don't really know what they are patenting exactly.

evanb 9y ago
If there's prior art, what's the difference if a system is first to file or first to invent?
- jhall1468 9y ago
  Because prior art is a defensive patent invalidation or prevention technique. If Google doesn't file this patent a troll will, and they will aggressively sue companies (Google included). Google is doing what it has to to protect itself. Blame the system.
  - beautifulfreak 9y ago
    They could have cc'd Jarek Duda, and avoided the appearance of pulling a fast one on the real inventor, putting their name on someone else's homework. It just looks sleazy.
rhizome 9y ago
Well, the us has moved to first to file. Sure, a land-grab model, but the frontier was not fair to everybody, and in fact was pretty harmful depending on your politics.
kpil 9y ago
...but ffs! The reason is that Google is encouraging their employees to file patents, just as everybody else, since the patent system in regards to software patents is really just a pissing contest - they need patents to hit each other in the heads with, and it doesn't matter if it's obvious implementations of things that people with a common sense will figure out in 10 minutes. In this case it took a while to figure out the smart thing, and it took 10 minutes to find an application to patent. I worked for a company that probably infringed on an existing telecom patent that was more or less equivalent to looking in another sock drawer if you can't find a matching sock, but as it was related to "an apparatus or method" for "locating subscriber registry data" it was apparently novel enough to require a patent. It took me about 1 minute to come up with the solution as an obvious solution to a simple problem so it was clearly just rubbish. The patentee had about 2 million other patents, so if someone had actually cared we could potentially have infringed on several more patents and run out of money long before we could win.
- sillysaurus3 9y ago
  But Google doesn't do that. That's worth something, right? It's easy to take the moral high ground, but I wanted to point out how it looks to the quiet objective people reading.
  - kpil 9y ago
    Google doesn't do what?
  - qu4z-2 9y ago
    My experience with Google is that the claim should probably be "Google doesn't do that at the moment".
cma 9y ago
Filings under first to file is still subject prior art from any existing patent or publication. The only publication that won't count as existing prior art is a publication from the inventor his or herself under a one year grace period.

evanb 9y ago

If there's prior art, what's the difference if a system is first to file or first to invent?

jhall1468 9y ago
Because prior art is a defensive patent invalidation or prevention technique. If Google doesn't file this patent a troll will, and they will aggressively sue companies (Google included). Google is doing what it has to to protect itself. Blame the system.
- beautifulfreak 9y ago
  They could have cc'd Jarek Duda, and avoided the appearance of pulling a fast one on the real inventor, putting their name on someone else's homework. It just looks sleazy.

rhizome 9y ago

Well, the us has moved to first to file. Sure, a land-grab model, but the frontier was not fair to everybody, and in fact was pretty harmful depending on your politics.

kpil 9y ago

...but ffs! The reason is that Google is encouraging their employees to file patents, just as everybody else, since the patent system in regards to software patents is really just a pissing contest - they need patents to hit each other in the heads with, and it doesn't matter if it's obvious implementations of things that people with a common sense will figure out in 10 minutes. In this case it took a while to figure out the smart thing, and it took 10 minutes to find an application to patent. I worked for a company that probably infringed on an existing telecom patent that was more or less equivalent to looking in another sock drawer if you can't find a matching sock, but as it was related to "an apparatus or method" for "locating subscriber registry data" it was apparently novel enough to require a patent. It took me about 1 minute to come up with the solution as an obvious solution to a simple problem so it was clearly just rubbish. The patentee had about 2 million other patents, so if someone had actually cared we could potentially have infringed on several more patents and run out of money long before we could win.

sillysaurus3 9y ago
But Google doesn't do that. That's worth something, right? It's easy to take the moral high ground, but I wanted to point out how it looks to the quiet objective people reading.
- kpil 9y ago
  Google doesn't do what?
- qu4z-2 9y ago
  My experience with Google is that the claim should probably be "Google doesn't do that at the moment".

cma 9y ago

Filings under first to file is still subject prior art from any existing patent or publication. The only publication that won't count as existing prior art is a publication from the inventor his or herself under a one year grace period.