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I imagine that someone looked at the program and saw it as largely a waste of money -- that it's unlikely that the patents being churned out at 2-3 a week, as I

by JackFr 8y ago

I imagine that someone looked at the program and saw it as largely a waste of money -- that it's unlikely that the patents being churned out at 2-3 a week, as IP were not worth the money they were paying for them, and a side-door bonus for engineering staff, they were not the most efficient means to talent retention & compensation. It seems the better solution might have been to tighten up the review process -- keep the money the same but accept fewer. If the individual contributor in question was really as good as reported, he would have been untouched.

make3 8y ago
this is the solution for sure. Having been through the patent process myself, I can't imagine what sort of BS patents they were churning out for an engineer to be able to have 2-3 a week. Making them conditional to review would have really improved on this
- jpatokal 8y ago
  That's 2-3 a week across the entire company (of unknown size), not a single engineer.
- Majromax 8y ago
  > I can't imagine what sort of BS patents they were churning out for an engineer to be able to have 2-3 a week. I interpret that part of the question as the program as a whole seeing 2-3 patents per week, spread over the entire engineering team. The employee in question produced 30 patents over two years -- still an astonishing rate, but evidently worthwhile because 'all of these inventions are used in our products'.
  - user5994461 8y ago
    Not really astounding. That's 1 or 2 per month. It's a reasonable amount. It's far from what a patent mill or patent troll could generate.
- lettergram 8y ago
  > I can't imagine what sort of BS patents they were churning out for an engineer to be able to have 2-3 a week Valuable IP often has several implementations. When I go through the process of parenting something, usually 3 - 5 different ways to accomplish similar goals are patented. Building a patent moat if you will. Further, not all patents need to be highly valuable. Volume almost matters as much as quality, because you’re less likely to be sued if you have the ability to counter sue with 2000 patents. Each patent infringement needs to be defended which costs thousands a piece. When Samsung and Apple started going at it. It woke up most of the larger companies to that. BS or not, still value if they have an semblance of an idea
- wishinghand 8y ago
  From the post it seems like they were. They'd get from $300 to $5000 and the engineer in question seemed to be hitting the upper range most of the time.
icelancer 8y ago
> they were not the most efficient means to talent retention & compensation And yet they are about to lose a senior engineer who is nearly invaluable to the company over $110k of previous bonuses. Funny, that.
baud147258 8y ago
> It seems the better solution might have been to tighten up the review process -- keep the money the same but accept fewer. I'd argue that with tighter restriction, you'd need to increase the payoff, to compensate the increased workload.

by JackFr 8y ago

make3 8y ago

this is the solution for sure. Having been through the patent process myself, I can't imagine what sort of BS patents they were churning out for an engineer to be able to have 2-3 a week. Making them conditional to review would have really improved on this

jpatokal 8y ago
That's 2-3 a week across the entire company (of unknown size), not a single engineer.
Majromax 8y ago
> I can't imagine what sort of BS patents they were churning out for an engineer to be able to have 2-3 a week. I interpret that part of the question as the program as a whole seeing 2-3 patents per week, spread over the entire engineering team. The employee in question produced 30 patents over two years -- still an astonishing rate, but evidently worthwhile because 'all of these inventions are used in our products'.
- user5994461 8y ago
  Not really astounding. That's 1 or 2 per month. It's a reasonable amount. It's far from what a patent mill or patent troll could generate.
lettergram 8y ago
> I can't imagine what sort of BS patents they were churning out for an engineer to be able to have 2-3 a week Valuable IP often has several implementations. When I go through the process of parenting something, usually 3 - 5 different ways to accomplish similar goals are patented. Building a patent moat if you will. Further, not all patents need to be highly valuable. Volume almost matters as much as quality, because you’re less likely to be sued if you have the ability to counter sue with 2000 patents. Each patent infringement needs to be defended which costs thousands a piece. When Samsung and Apple started going at it. It woke up most of the larger companies to that. BS or not, still value if they have an semblance of an idea
wishinghand 8y ago
From the post it seems like they were. They'd get from $300 to $5000 and the engineer in question seemed to be hitting the upper range most of the time.

icelancer 8y ago

> they were not the most efficient means to talent retention & compensation And yet they are about to lose a senior engineer who is nearly invaluable to the company over $110k of previous bonuses. Funny, that.

baud147258 8y ago

> It seems the better solution might have been to tighten up the review process -- keep the money the same but accept fewer. I'd argue that with tighter restriction, you'd need to increase the payoff, to compensate the increased workload.