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Inventor says Google is patenting work he put in the public domain
- codetoliveby 8y agoBut this is a bit of a dark area. Even if Google stopped pursuing the patent, who is to say that someone else wouldn't?
- mabbo 8y agoA court ruling against someone patenting this would strongly discourage anyone else from trying.
- mcny 8y agoThank you. Sounds like a win win scenario for Google. If the courts decide Google can't patent it, it probably means nobody else can either.
- brisance 8y agoHow is this a win-win scenario for Google? They’re attempting to do something that is strictly against the interest of the inventor and abusing the patent system in order to achieve a commerical advantage at the cost of the rest of humanity. This is totally evil in my view.
- mistrial9 8y agoit is exactly a "win-win" for Google, as described above, because fairness and respect to an individual author are not included in the decision at all. It is money and the legal context of money, that is described in "win-win" and as you rightly point out, this creates miserable results from a humanist point of view.
- FartyMcFarter 8y agoKey words: "for google".
- phkahler 8y agoGoogle may simply want the patent to prevent someone like MPEG LA getting one. I suspect they really want it to prevent MPEG LA from using the technique in a codec though. Or perhaps Google employees are simply chasing the incentives to get patents.
- brisance 8y agoIf MPEG LA tries to patent it then they’d have to go through the same process. But they haven’t so why is Google trying to be a smartass and directly challenge the inventor, when it was him who gave them the idea in the first place? The most charitable thing to say is that they’re naïve but given how they’ve also considered working with the US government on drones to kill people I think they’ve really strayed from trying to “organize the world’s information”.
- tdb7893 8y agoTheir main goal is to not get sued. As long as no one else is granted the patent they probably won't be too unhappy. As a large tech firm just not patenting anything doesn't seem practical given the current patent law even if you don't plan on suing people for them. Once you get a patent another company can't get a patent for the same thing (and if they do it's easy to invalidate) and also the more patents you have the less likely you are to be sued for patent infringement as you could always sue them back for your patents.
- brisance 8y agoSo we are going to have to rely on the goodwill of Google not to sue others if they are awarded the patent? How about being a good corporate citizen like the others and not trying to patent it in the first place?
- ocdtrekkie 8y agoCorporations do not act with goodwill, and those that do are often not successful corporations for long, as others take advantage of them. Remember that every time you see a corporation seemingly acting selflessly, either you don't realize how it benefits them, or its just a public relations play. But corporations always act in self-interest.
- brisance 8y agohttps://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Bosch_GmbH https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Bosch_GmbH
- yorwba 8y agoI guess you want to highlight that the company is owned mostly by a charitable foundation ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Bosch_GmbH#Corporate_affairs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Bosch_GmbH#Corporate_af... ), but I think it's important to realize that the company itself still operates as a profit maximizer for its shareholders. You only need to scroll down to the section about their involvement in the Volkswagen emissions scandal for proof of that.
- YouAreGreat 8y ago> at the cost of the rest of humanity This is the main reason why I'm on the fence regarding nuclear non-proliferation. We're approaching the point where nuking the 'plex from orbit will be humanity's last option, the only way to be sure.
- mabbo 8y agoIf Google wins, they have the patent on this implementation. If Google loses, no one can have the patent. Either way, Google isn't paying anyone else to do this.
- n1231231231234 8y agoWhat's missing in this win-win equation is Google's image. It's another instance of Google getting lots of negative press, where they are portrayed as the bad guys. So whatever the patent outcome, with respect to their image, Google is certainly not winning.
- monochromatic 8y agoUnless they wrote their claims differently.
- analog31 8y agoThe patent application and its prosecution history become public knowledge, hence prior art against any further attempt to patent the same thing.
- kharms 8y agoIs there a form of theft that can't be justified with that sentence? "If the USA didn't take land from the Native Americans, who is to say that someone else wouldn't?"
- akeck 8y agoIsn’t it already published then?
- seandougall 8y agoYup. And if I had a nickel for every time a patent was granted despite the existence of prior art...
- contravariant 8y agoI feel like many of these patents start with the idea 'if I had a nickel every time...'
- delbel 8y agodid we switch from prior art to first to patent a few years back?
- pwg 8y agoThe switch was from "first to invent" to "first to file". Prior art is still prior art, just the same in both types of "filings". The "first to file" setup changed some of the critical date ranges around slightly that determine under what statute clause any given publication (i.e. prior art) may be used, but did not change the fact that a prior publication effects the patenting of a later application. Now, getting that prior publication in the hands of the patent offices so they can utilize it to effect a later application, that is the hard part. Esp. if that prior publication was not somewhere big and well known (i.e., a personal blog would be a prior publication, but it is doubtful any of the patent offices would discover the personal blog on their own).
- DennisP 8y agoWe switched from "first to invent" to "first to file," but published prior art still invalidates a patent. The change just means that if two people try to patent something that they've invented privately, then the one with priority is the one who filed first.
- mikece 8y agoWhat is the relative advantage of putting something into the public domain versus releasing under an Apache 2 or MIT license? The latter doesn’t restrict anyone’s use AND establishes a public record to refute what Google is trying to do. Additionally, communications by email could be via GitHub issues and open to all to see.
- enedil 8y agoBecause it's algorithm and not code.
- ajb 8y agoenedil is correct. To expand on that: MIT and Apache2 grant a licence to copyrightable expression. But the literal code is not what is patented, the idea is. Granting a license to the code doesn't automatically prevent someone else from patenting the idea. MIT doesn't say anything about patents. Apache2 additionally grants a licence to any patents which the author has which cover the work, and also tries to prevent someone using the work and then suing other people for patent infringement. But it does so by saying " any patent licenses granted to You under this License for that Work shall terminate as of the date such litigation is filed." Which is a null threat in this case, as the idea is to try to prevent there being a patent in the first place. You could argue that the author should have patented the idea, and then freely licensed it. But since patents cost thousands each, that's a bit much to ask.
- evrydayhustling 8y ago> the author should have patented the idea, then freely licensed it This is the brutal truth of how crappy our current patent mechanisms are. The definition of what constitutes a patentable extension to practice of ideas that are well known or explicitly in the public domain is very weak. So, until something is patented and actively protected by bulldog lawyers, there is a risk of someone else trying to umbrella it in their own patent. Google's move can even be justified on defensive grounds that some other jerks could do the same. But the core problem is an arms race to the bottom of what trivial distinctions can be claimed.
- tehabe 8y agoAnother example why software patents don't really work. Because most thing software patents cover are not really inventions but ideas. Also the written code is already protected via copyright. That is the difference to a eg. wind mill, the blue prints are only protected by a patent, not by copyright. And it effects only the implementation.
- blattimwind 8y agoBlue prints are absolutely covered by copyright.
- jonathanyc 8y agoI think that’s what they meant. See “only.”
- pbhjpbhj 8y agoCan you explain further, that doesn't make sense.
- PebblesRox 8y agoI think the idea is that the blueprint’s copywrite doesn’t give sufficient protection to keep someone from using the invention (since they can reverse-engineer based on the actual machine). Only a patent can actually protect in this case.
- rhizome 8y agoDo you mean the "only" that's followed by "not by copyright?"
- jonathanyc 8y agoYes, an almost universal trait of human languages is that they include redundancies for error correction. Reread the post the OP is replying to and then read the OP’s comment.
- williamxd3 8y agointellectual property shouldn't exist.
- kankroc 8y agoIntellectual property done right puts bread on the table of many researchers and engineers and is arguably a protection agains't direct Chinese theft. That being said, Google is really turning into a monster at this point with all their patents on random algorithms.
- baybal2 8y ago>protection agains't direct Chinese theft. Man........... A detailed patent with blueprints is like a call for action for an average broke and desperate factory owner
- bingoboingo33 8y agoIs that an opinion, or a peer-reviewed scientific conclusion? Just curious.
- bgorman 8y agoIf I take a Range Rover, reserse engineer it and sell it for a lower price who is harmed? The society at large or a special interest group involved in the manufacturing of the original Range Rover? If you want to make money off manufacturing you should invest in novel things. Not things that rely on the IP system to generate wealth for you. China is booming because they disregard Western IP. IP is a construction that benefits wealthy countries for the benefit of the wealthy.
- teddyh 8y agoThose are two terrible arguments. > Intellectual property done right puts bread on the table of many researchers and engineers The same can be said for any number of things; just because you can make money doing it does not mean it is defensible to do it simply because of that reason. It is a non-argument. > and is arguably a protection agains't direct Chinese theft. That is called begging the question. If intellectual property did not exist, “theft” would not be theft, and nobody would create a business which would depend on it existing.
- vermooten 8y agoDid he use middle-out?
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- baybal2 8y agoThat was discussed on HN almost a year ago, with me being slapped either for my use of colourful rhetorics, ... or possibly divulging on their correspondence. Basically things were like that: Google's side said something to the effect of "you are free to sue us, if you can" and a colourful comment on his income level. And after leaving a mail address of their attorney, they went incommunicado.
- gregatragenet3 8y agoThe US used to have a great First-To-Invent patent system. It disappointingly switched to First-To-File in 2013 and these patents you are seeing are the result. With FTI Google could use the compression technique without filing because if someone else later filed Google could show that they had reduced it to practice first. However with FTF, any technology Google might potentially use in the future, they must file a patent for - this compression tech, or one of the DNN techs they've recently developed. Otherwise they could start using the technology and another company could copy the technology, file a patent, and be granted the patent because of FTF. They could then pursue Google for patent infringement. In FTI they could develop and use tech without patenting it. in FTF they have to patent it because if they don't they'll lose the ability to use the tech to the first copycat who files. FTF is just continuing the trend in the US of making it harder and harder for IP to be in the public domain - moving more towards the privatization of IP.
- dpark 8y agoThis is not how FTF works. Prior art still trumps the patent filing.
- jhall1468 8y agoPrior art is a legal defense. Patents are lawsuit prevention. Even with prior art it's cheaper to just patent.
- dpark 8y agoSure. But it’s untrue that someone can simply file a patent for an existing invention and effectively steal it from the inventor. Filing the patent can minimize legal headaches, though. (To the extent that a bad actor can “steal” an invention, FTF vs FTI is irrelevant.)
- Nomentatus 8y agoOnly if well known. Recent decisions in U.S. courts.
- DennisP 8y agoIf he can prove he published it, then he should file his prior art with the patent office. In fact, if he notifies Google of his prior art then Google is obligated to tell the patent office about it.
- DannyBee 8y agoHe did, they include it as a reference, but haven't made any determination at all
- eeZah7Ux 8y agoThis is a reason for using [L]GPL: explicit patent protection. https://www.gnu.org/licenses/rms-why-gplv3.en.html https://www.gnu.org/licenses/rms-why-gplv3.en.html https://fsfe.org/campaigns/gplv3/patents-and-gplv3.en.html#Explicit-patent-grant https://fsfe.org/campaigns/gplv3/patents-and-gplv3.en.html#E...
- beefman 8y agoHad Duda released his code under GPLv3, he would have quit his own patent claims, not prevented Google from asserting theirs. In general, there is no way to prevent patent claims on your work other than to defensively patent every conceivable application of it. That is why all major corporations have large portfolios of such patents.
- belorn 8y agoIn theory one should not need to defensively patent anything that is published openly since the patent office should not grant any patents for ideas which has already been published. It is only if we accept that the patent office is utterly broken and do not check for prior art that defensively patent every conceivable application of public released work is a good idea.
- dxhdr 8y agoReading through the linked 2014 email exchange is somewhat amusing. I love how the first two responses to his ideas are uninformed cynicism regarding increased hardware memory costs. Then things start to make a bit more sense with another engineer interested in coders actually digging in and verifying / debugging his work. And then of course it takes a dark turn at the end with Google applying to patent his ideas which he so generously offered to them.
- Promarged 8y agoIt reminds me of one person here on HN describing their interaction with Google w.r.t. their startup's novel idea.
- leke 8y agoGoogle's new motto: Be Evil.
- wereHamster 8y agoDon't be evil. Right? RIGHT?
- DannyBee 8y ago"a view largely endorsed by a preliminary ruling in February by European patent authorities" If one clicks through, you discover it says literally nothing of the sort, it just says they will include that email exchange as a possible prior art reference (along with a lot of other things). It actually doesn't express any opinions at all, except on the priority claim, which is not related to this part. It is literally a notification that says "we will consider these two additional things as possible prior art references" This part is very shoddy reporting.
- allenz 8y agoI think you missed the other seven pages. Page 2 paragraph 6: > The present application does not meet the criteria of Article 33(1) PCT, because the subject-matter of claim 1 does not involve an inventive step in the sense of Article 33(3) PCT.
- DannyBee 8y agoThe PDF it gives you on mobile is indeed one page. But reading all the other pages it still doesn't change my view. The part you cite is about whether that claim is patentable at all in view of the paper, it's unrelated to the prior art emails. If that is upheld it would mean the person complaining here could not get a patent either. They've made no determination that what is in the emails is relevant to anything that I can see. It would also be par for the course since examination tends to take a while.
- allenz 8y ago> it's unrelated to the prior art... they've made no determination that what is in the emails is relevant to anything that I can see Paragraph 6.1: "The author of D1 [Jarek] provided in January 2014 in an on-line discussion forum information that would allow a skilled person to reach the invention without having to apply any inventive skills." Paragraph 6.2: "In particular, it has been proposed in the on-line discussion forum to use ANS in video compression "like VP9" (D5)..." The patent court is saying that Google's patent on ANS in video compression is invalid in light of Jarek's prior art, exactly as Jarek claims. The report cites Jarek's emails (documents D5 and D6) as prior art over and over.
- kyle-rb 8y agoThis reminds me of the "pull to refresh" patent that Twitter owns, but has promised to only use defensively. Optimistically, Google wants a similar thing so they can defend the use of this technique if someone tries to seek royalties for use of this video encoding technique. A little less optimistically, Google wants it so they can pull the license from a specific party if that party tries to sue them for an unrelated patent.
- ndr 8y agoWhat do you mean by defensively then Isn't patent war a bit like Risk in that whoever has more patents (no matter how related) used by the other party wins?
- jaredklewis 8y agoMore like MUD. The cost of litigating a patent war between companies at the scale of Google is so high, that it’s generally not in anyone’s interest.
- QuercusMax 8y agoI think you mean MAD - Mutually Assured Destruction. Although a patent-war MUD (multi-user dungeon/domain) might be an interesting premise.
- jaredklewis 8y agoOh, yes, definitely meant that, thanks!
- xamarinthrw 8y agoPull to refresh is a cancer which has wasted hours in my life online because of over eager scrolling. I hope twitter starts aggressively suing and charging people who use it and they all go bankrupt and come to rue their life choices. EDIT: somebody flagged me, sorry I didn't frame it correctly. I forgot to mention jobless so lots of time to ponder over the mistake.
- xfs 8y agoRead this reaction from xiphmont: https://xiphmont.dreamwidth.org/84214.html https://xiphmont.dreamwidth.org/84214.html It paints a quite different picture.
- throwaway37585 8y agoI see nothing substantive in the post you linked to. Can you clarify why you think it “paints a quite different picture”?
- allenz 8y agoThis comes off as rather dismissive. Xiphmont simultaneously claims that Jarek's work is useless ("the performance claims just don't hold up") and that Google needs a defensive patent on it. As someone on encode.ru pointed out, "if Google genuinely wanted this as a defensive patent, then the right approach is to work with Jarek and pay for him to file a patent on ANS itself blocking as many of the spin-off patents as possible." They didn't even talk to him before patenting his work.
- kevmo314 8y agoThat doesn't sound like the right approach. Google has the resources to actually defend the patent. While ideally/ethically Jarek should be the one with the patent, if the patent is only being used defensively, Jarek probably isn't the right entity to actually defend it.
- allenz 8y agoGoogle could also buy the patent from Jarek. At minimum, they should have talked with him.
- powturbo 8y ago> "the performance claims just don't hold up" see now the fatcs in https://sites.google.com/site/powturbo/entropy-coder https://sites.google.com/site/powturbo/entropy-coder and how rANS based entropy coder outperforms the current AOMedia AV1 entropy coder by 7 times.
- djsumdog 8y agoI wish more of the world would take New Zealand's stance. Software patents are banned in that country. The US/EU should really go a similar route.
- dd36 8y agoIt’s probably too late. Too many entrenched interests and public interest groups don’t have resources.
- tabtab 8y agoIt will probably only change if non-software-patent countries start kicking our economic butts. THEN policy makers will take notice.
- wowtip 8y agoRemember the fights against software patents in the early 2000s? How corporations said they needed them, and they would not be abused. Fast forward 15 years and we see all fears have come true. Big corporations hoard software patents, which are used to stifle competition and extort money from companies using free software. Worth keeping in mind when fighting for net neutrality and other issues where corporations make promises when trying to limit the freedom of the public.
- hamami 8y agoI think it would be useful if there was a patent type for "free for anyone to use", something like the MIT License in open source. This would make it easier for patent officers to discover and reject applications conflicting with prior free to use patents and offload the burden of keeping track of this from the inventor to the patent office.
- sixdimensional 8y agoI agree with you, however, I think the difficult part is finding an entity capable of enforcing such a patent. I mean, we have things like the EFF or Apache foundation, but what organization could manage such a patent type? There would have to be enough trust in a granting body of such a patent, and it would need to be able to operate unencumbered for the global public good. I think this is an interesting problem worth solving though, if it can be. Edit: this was an interesting related HN discussion - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17240429 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17240429
- maxk42 8y agoWell it used to be that no action was necessary to prevent someone from patenting something you've already invented and released publicly: The first person to invent it had the right to patent or not patent it, and nobody else. A few years ago we switched to a "first-to-file" system and this is a direct consequence of that. Someone who didn't invent something can now file a patent. Doing so is a lengthy, expensive process, so the immediate consequence is there is no more "public domain" inventing. This needs to be reversed.
- ttul 8y agoAbsolutely. The first to file system greatly disadvantages individual and/or poorly funded inventors, because for big corporations, the cost to file is no great hurdle.
- JumpCrisscross 8y agoFlip side: first to file arose because first to invent is inherently ambiguous. The fixed cost of a filing was deemed better than the large and unknowable cost of determining who invented what when through the courts.
- wquak 8y ago"Don't do evil" my ass
- partycoder 8y agoIf you watch "American Genius" (documentary show about inventors) you will see how some of the most important inventors of the 20th century wasted decades of their life in patent related litigations rather than working in more inventions. This stupid scent marking bullshit needs to stop.
- trhway 8y ago>A Google spokesperson told Ars that Duda came up with a theoretical concept that isn't directly patentable, while Google's lawyers are seeking to patent a specific application of that theory that reflects additional work by Google's engineers. and this is how you do it, children. You patent a straightforward implementation and application ("additional work by engineers") of the idea, and thus you effectively prevent anybody from _implementing_ and _applying_ the same idea while the idea itself is supposedly still patent-free (an additional bonus is that you don't even have to pay to the author of the idea :).
- wb36 8y agoYou can't patent an idea, only an implementation of an idea.
- elliotec 8y agoBut I think the point is that if there is really only one viable implementation of an idea, they’re effectively patenting the idea via the implementation.
- dick_sucker2 8y agoAren't drugs patents ideas and not implementations?
- lightedman 8y agoGenerally, drug patents list the molecular structure, chemical formula, and specific method which they utilize to arrive at the finished product.
- dick_sucker2 8y agoIf a drug patent hasn't passed phase 3 trials isn't it just an idea?
- jeffreyrogers 8y ago
- luord 8y agoIf the patent is granted (unlikely), here's hoping they uphold that "don't be evil" thing. Oh, boy...
- Mrtierne 8y agoDoesn’t really fit into Google’s primary revenue streams so can’t imagine that’s their motivation
- basicplus2 8y agoIt therefore fails the criteria to be Patentable.. If he informs the Patent Office, the Patent should be voided.