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Vigilante engineer stops Waymo from patenting key lidar technology
- steve_adams_86 8y agoThat's stunning that (evidently) no one noticed the patents were for a physically impossible design. Was the legal battle even about the designs or more so for posturing?
- TheM00se 8y agothe later, it's for having an IP portfolio and getting a choke-hold on the market
- canada_dry 8y agoI agree. Just like how engineers certify building plans to ensure the laws of physics are respected, patents really should need to go through some sort of peer certification review - at the submitter's expense - before it gets in front of an examiner!
- Groxx 8y agoMaking patents even slower to approve, and even more big-corp-only focused. You win some, you lose some. I'm not even sure which I'd prefer. It's all just fairly terrible.
- bsder 8y agoFor the little guy--you lose some, they win more. Patents need to have a much shorter lifetime except when regulation is involved. Tech patents, in general, should probably last about 5 years. If you get a patent, you should have to actively promote and license it if you want money from it. You shouldn't be able to just sit on it for decades and then nail somebody who comes out with a useful product down the road. Medical patents probably should be a little different. They should probably be 5 years OR you can tie the patent to an FDA approval which would give you FDA approval date+5 years. But, if that particular FDA approval fails, your patent falls.
- consp 8y ago5 years, from filing to market to making profit is really short. Maybe it works for simple parents but I'm pretty sure most true inventions (and smaller companies with somewhat less complicated patents) will not be able to profit properly from the patent that way.
- bsder 8y agoTough. The nominal goal of a patent is to encourage innovation--not rent seeking. And, if you can't monetize the patent within 5 years then maybe the patent really isn't that important or you really don't know how to implement the thing in the patent. That suggests that maybe you shouldn't be granted the patent in the first place. Making patent terms short also has the upside that the big guys will want stricter review of patents rather than the current mess of almost universal approvals. After the big guys get burned a few times by somebody patenting something that can't actually be implemented but causes disclosure and burns up the clock on the patent they were going to file on their current product development, they will start screaming for real patent review processes.
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- TeMPOraL 8y agoDepends on the market. For most software patents, even 3 years might be too much, as in that time the "invention" will be already obsoleted by something else. I strongly agree with GP that companies should not be able to just sit on patents. The ability to literally prevent useful ways of thinking from manifesting in this world is something that goes against the core justification of the patent system. Also, I'd like to see much bigger pressure put on quality of patents. All patents are eventually meant to go to public domain, and the public is meant to be able to recreate the invention from the text of the patent. Therefore, I believe a patent should not be granted if it isn't demonstrated that it contains all and accurate information necessary to reproduce the invention.
- burfog 8y agoThe review will never be enough. It's better to eliminate the presumption of validity. Without that presumption, there is no need to bother with review, and patents become little more than certified timestamps.
- Eug894 8y ago...with R&D price tags attached. Then everyone who uses something a court considered similar must pay his contribution to the price of the oldest patent involved.
- adrianN 8y agoMaybe patents should come with a prototype.
- lbriner 8y agoMaybe your competitor finds out while you are trying to build the prototype, builds one more quickly and gets the patent before you!
- adrianN 8y agoI don't think it would be too hard to enable some kind of preliminary filing while still requiring a functional prototype.
- anticensor 8y agoThis also fullfills the purpose as all parties are encouraged to innovate.
- eridius 8y agoFrom the article, it sounds like Waymo's attempts at rewriting the patent were what introduced the physical impossibilities. Presumably the circuit from the original patent was physically possible.
- erpellan 8y agoPatents are broken. I give you: The Stick. https://patents.google.com/patent/US6360693 https://patents.google.com/patent/US6360693 HN discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2102388 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2102388 Also: we all owe license fees for using gravity. https://patents.google.com/patent/US6368227B1/en https://patents.google.com/patent/US6368227B1/en
- Schwolop 8y agoI see yours and raise you this: https://patents.google.com/patent/US20070244837 https://patents.google.com/patent/US20070244837 "System and method for extracting value from a portfolio of assets" - a.k.a. The process of being a patent troll is patented.
- lisper 8y agoAs an experiment I once applied for and received a patent on a faster-than-light communications system: https://patents.google.com/patent/US7126691B2/en https://patents.google.com/patent/US7126691B2/en The patent system is FUBAR.
- saalweachter 8y agoAnd if anyone builds an FTL communication system based on your design, your rights will be protected.
- lisper 8y agoYeah, but only for the next four years so they better hurry it up.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- anticensor 8y agohttps://patents.google.com/patent/US20170213291A1 https://patents.google.com/patent/US20170213291A1 He patented automated patent troll. Unfortunately, this will not hold in court.
- dang 8y agoUrl changed from https://www.cnet.com/roadshow/news/waymo-uber-lidar-patent-engineer/ https://www.cnet.com/roadshow/news/waymo-uber-lidar-patent-e..., which points to this.
- Jerry2 8y agoThis URL referenced by CloudYeller is a much better story than the Ars one: https://www.wired.com/story/eric-swildens-uber-waymo-lawsuit-patent/ https://www.wired.com/story/eric-swildens-uber-waymo-lawsuit...
- dang 8y agoThat was discussed in 2017 here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15875685 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15875685. The new articles do have new information, so we'll leave this one up.
- drakenot 8y agoI'm impressed that the random engineer was willing to put up $6k of his own money to challenge the patent, despite not benefiting from the decision in any way.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- CloudYeller 8y ago"Random engineer", or guy who sold a company for $130M after a patent-induced nightmare? https://www.wired.com/story/eric-swildens-uber-waymo-lawsuit-patent/ https://www.wired.com/story/eric-swildens-uber-waymo-lawsuit...
- isatty 8y agoDoesn’t matter - he saw something anyone with EE101 should’ve spotted from the rewrite, stuck with his guns for no personal gain and won. I would love to have that much attention to detail (or even in the interest in reading through the patent).
- writepub 8y agoIt matters. Of all possible patents to invalidate, why this one? Uber - one of the world's most valuable private companies, doesn't need help with patent law.
- TeMPOraL 8y agoPossible explanation: because this guy doesn't spend his day looking for patents to challenge; he read about that particular one on the news due to Waymo vs Uber case, and decided to take a look at it, only to notice it's bullshit. That's the official story, but it also sounds pretty plausible.
- drakenot 8y agoApparently they do considering they hadn’t submitted their own reexamination request of the patent in question that inevitably led to Waymo dropping the patent claim.
- rkagerer 8y agoWell done
- twtw 8y agoProps to this guy. I just took a look at the patent (highly recommended), and it's fairly ridiculous. It's a 101 design to control a diode with a transistor.
- deepnotderp 8y agoLiterally is a GaN xtor driving a laser diode. It's not like Velodyne has been doing that for years :/
- simias 8y agoIt does look that way but then if that's the case why didn't anybody at Uber point that out during the lawsuit? From the article: >The patent describes how a laser diode can be configured to emit pulses of laser light using a circuit that includes an inductor and a gallium nitride transistor. That chance discovery helped spark a lawsuit in which Waymo accused Uber of patent infringement and of using lidar secrets supposedly stolen by engineer Anthony Levandowski. >In August 2017, Uber agreed to redesign its Fuji lidar not to infringe the 936 patent. If "some guy" with $6000 lying around could overturn most of the patent why couldn't Uber? That's the part that baffles me.
- C4stor 8y agoMaybe Uber is big enough that noone in the legal team even thought about asking for an engineer opinion on the claims to begin with ? You know, like "This thing is a matter for our department, we'll take of it for sure !"
- ben_w 8y agoReal life example from someone I know: They worked at a company which was only allowed to use certain DRM stuff if they used patent-protected encryption within the hardware. Therefore he invented some and worked with the company lawyer to get a patent. The patent lawyers’ job includes making the patent as general as possible. The lawyer did not understand the technology, and while broadening the patent claim they accidentally changed the patent into something which already existed - a binary adder, if I remember, certainly something that simple although the details are unimportant. None of this was relevant to my acquaintance nor their employer as the mere fact that they had a patent entitled them to use the DRM. Even lawyers are vulnerable to the game of telephone. Despite their reputation as vampires, they are very human.
- hiccuphippo 8y agoHow can I but this man a beer?
- deepnotderp 8y agoInteresting that Google/Waymo is one of the companies that boasts about not filing for bs patent portfolios and yet... :(
- ezoe 8y agoAll patents are BS.
- deepnotderp 8y agoNot all to be honest, there are keystone patents (e.g. patent for integrated circuit) that were genuinely novel and breakthrough, but somewhere along the way the system seems to have become large dysfunctional.
- vikingcaffiene 8y ago> He then spent $6,000 of his own money Who on earth has that kind of scratch just lying around to spend on something like this? I mean good for him for doing it but wow!!
- King-Aaron 8y agoLuckily for the engineering community, it's somewhere around > 1
- ricardobeat 8y agoThere are approximately 35 million millionaires on Earth.
- C4stor 8y agoIf I read correctly correlated informations, the guy sold a company for 130 million dollars in the early 2000s (a story which also provided him with much needed experience in patents laws). If his only hobby in the meantime has been challenging patents, he probably can afford it !
- unreal37 8y agoWe don't know how much of that he got to keep. The company raised $50 Million from investors (who need to get repaid), and there were other co-founders involved. He said $6000 was "not a drop in the bucket" for him, so I guess he didn't get much of that.
- jonknee 8y agoThere are billionaires who regularly post here, the impressive part to me is the self-filing not the $6,000.
- discjockeydom 8y agoI have actually reviewed this man's supposedly vigilante's submission to the USPTO and it is clear that this story is not what it seems. The document is a highly professional 95+ page document of complex legal argumentation that only a law firm with a small team of lawyers with a lot of prior experience doing this could have put together. It contains lots of lawyer speak and contemporary argumentation that a lay person would simple not have knowledge of. As much as people are keen to believe the vigilante narrative, there is zero chance that is what happened here. Instead, he was used as a 'strawman' by a company with much deeper pockets to attack Waymo's key patent. I estimate that this actually cost around $100k to prepare and file.
- pentae 8y agoPerhaps thats where the $6000 of his own money was spent, having a lawyer/lawyer friend edit his document into legal speak?
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- chongli 8y agoI would've thought the $6000 only covered the cost of filing the challenge with the PTO.
- calcifer 8y agoIt is really funny that a conspiracy theory posted by an anonymous person with no backing evidence whatsoever is sitting at the top of this thread.
- codeCatalyst 8y agoIt's sad that Google has become part of the problem rather than the solution. So much for "Do no Evil".
- writepub 8y agoOn this one, they may have some ground. A former engineer allegedly walked out with designs, and pleaded the fifth amendment when asked to testify in court.
- ezoe 8y agoSo, the last year, Waymo claimed that Uber infringe this patent and Uber claimed they redesign it so it didn't infringe the patent now. And then, the same patent is concluded to be "impossible" and "magic". What kind of nonsense is this? How do you use or redesign to avoid using the impossible magic tech?
- TeMPOraL 8y agoThe way I understand the story from this article, the patent wasn't magic, it was just obvious and plenty of prior art existed. When this guy challenged that patent, Waymo started rewriting it, and this is when the "impossible magic tech" was introduced.
- ezoe 8y agoYes. I read the article and it looks like so.
- kabes 8y agoMakes me wonder how many patents are unrightfully granted.
- jjeaff 8y agoI'd guess about 95% of them give or take a few percentage points.
- jonathanstrange 8y agoIf the US patent office did their job, then there would be no need for "vigilante" engineers. Maybe the reporting of the patent situation is a bit biased but from what I've heard over the years it appears to me that every second patent should be invalid and has prior art.
- ChrisSD 8y agoThat would require someone to pay the US patent office to do their jobs. I believe paying for government services is considered a contentious issue in the USA.
- kodablah 8y agoNope, overpaying, or having a system too large (requiring large pay), or not requiring users of the system pay are contentious.
- jsjohnst 8y ago> That would require someone to pay the US patent office to do their jobs. You mean like charging a fee[0] for using the USPTO? [0] https://www.uspto.gov/learning-and-resources/fees-and-payment/uspto-fee-schedule https://www.uspto.gov/learning-and-resources/fees-and-paymen...
- drhodes 8y ago> A quick review of the budget and supporting Commerce Department Appendix suggests the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has received everything it requested ($3,586,193,000), and will not suffer the indignity of fee diversion... https://www.ipwatchdog.com/2017/05/23/uspto-3-6-billion-presidents-fy-2018-budget-avoids-fee-diversion/id=83633/ https://www.ipwatchdog.com/2017/05/23/uspto-3-6-billion-pres... more about the fee diversion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Patent_and_Trademark_Office#Fee_diversion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Patent_and_Trade... The USPTO isn't mentioned in the congressional budget resolutions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_United_States_federal_budget#Congressional_budget_resolution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_United_States_federal_bud... > Congress Approves $1.3 Trillion Spending Bill, Averting a Shutdown https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/22/us/politics/house-passes-spending-bill.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/22/us/politics/house-passes-...
- Kiro 8y ago> The USPTO found that some claims replicated technology described in an earlier patent from lidar vendor Velodyne, while another claim was simply "impossible" and "magic." I don't see the word "magic" anywhere in the Final Rejection document. What did they say exactly?
- sir-alien 8y agoAlthough some engineers may disagree, this is one of the reasons I believe engineering should NOT be a protected industry/profession. Fine if the title was but not the action of doing it. I read a story about someone showing flaws in a USA traffic light system and he was subsequently fined for "illegal engineering" which is the most idiotic thing ever. Going on current USA progression it won't be long before you get 10 years behind bars for "illegal engineering" in some states. Wasn't even that long ago. https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/04/29/engineer_fined_for_talking_about_math/ https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/04/29/engineer_fined_for_...
- moftz 8y agoThat case is a little out there, I've never met an non-pe engineer that has ever gotten in trouble for doing engineering. I think PE certifications are fine in cases where there is one guy having the final say on a massive project that could kill someone if it fails. If my calculator app crashes, no one is going to be crushed to death. I think software and electrical engineering is a little bit different compared to a mechanical or civil engineer that is designing buildings and superstructures. For one, software and hardware is something you can constantly test and redesign for relatively little cost. You can come out with a product that just works and works well. Even if you are producing software and hardware that goes into lifesaving equipment, you can still perform tests on the final product to make sure it conforms. Once you build that bridge, its up there. You can't refactor it and come out with a new version if a strut fails. And because your design is in the public, the county/state/country is going to make sure you do it right. Too many people have been hurt by shoddy buildings in the lifetime of humanity to ignore modern safety code. There should be no reason why having a licensed professional engineer is a bad thing for anyone except those not good enough to beat the exam or those too cheap to hire one. I really don't see anything to suggests that "illegal engineering" is a trend. I don't think that discussing engineering topics should be illegal but you should be fined for lying about being a PE just as you would by saying you are a medical doctor when you really aren't.
- geebee 8y agoI believe that the PE in Industrial engineering works that way (ie., as a professional title designation). I don't think there's anything you can do with a PE in Industrial Engineering that you wouldn't be allowed to do as an "Operations Research Analyst". I read this a while back and tried to search around for it and wasn't successful, so sorry, I'm saying this with no cite (and not a lot of certainty). I suppose software engineering could work the same, but I seriously doubt anyone of the 200K+ salaried software engineers at top tech companies would bother getting it if it were just a title designation. Nor do the better paid supply chain analysts and other types who are essentially doing IE seem to bother with the PE designation. The problem here is that we have sound engineers and special effects engineers, and I truly don't think there's a huge problem with the dilution of the term. I personally don't like the term software engineering much, mainly because I think it's better to acknowledge that something very new has emerged, and that it really isn't a branch of engineering. I think that it shares a set of great grand parents with many engineering disciplines and a few other fields (the math department), but I think software is about as closely related to engineering as actuarial science or statistics, or maybe even quantitative economics. We have our own thing here. If we want to make it more rigorously licensed, ok, that's not a bad discussion to have, but I'd personally rather see it kept well away from engineering. I'm suspicious of degree requirements, but if we had one, a degree in math might even make more sense than than engineering. I see a lot of this as an engineering land grab. There's all this talk about how software "engineering" is diluting the term engineering, and yeah, when you can read a book on PHP and MySql (or just the first few pages) and call yourself an engineer, that tends to happen. But come on now, folks, let's not be excessively modest here. Incredible things are happening in software. PageRank is a work of math, not a work of engineering. Before it strikes you as excessively paranoid, keep in mind that the patent bar specifically excludes mathematics as coursework that qualifies you to become a patent agent or lawyer. This surprises a lot of people, but yeah, someone with a degree in civil engineering can qualify to evaluate whether a new development infringes on page rank, where as someone with a BA, MA, and PhD in math? Nope, math isn't relevant to the patent bar. The low, low quality of patent review in this field is pretty evident, and we actually go out of our way to specifically exclude people who probably have the strongest background. Trust me, engineers will totally screw up software if they get control of licensing, and I assure you, they will absolutely exclude people with math degrees from licensing. Look, if they want to do that with structural engineering, go ahead, but they need to keep their mitts off software.
- still_grokking 8y ago> In March, an examiner noted that a re-drawn diagram of Waymo's lidar firing circuit showed current passing along a wire between the circuit and the ground in two directions—something generally deemed impossible. Oh! Someone took inspiration in real magic[1]. [1] http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/magic-story.html http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/magic-story.html
- iamleppert 8y agoJust goes to show that in top-down organizations, it doesn't matter if they have tons of employees and engineers when the work output of all of them is just a sum and intrinsically limited by their masters at the top.
- Allower 8y agoMeaning the USPTO isn't satisfying their responsibilities?