4 ms·

I recall an article a while back about how IBM is so innovative because it had the most patents filed per year on tech or something. I think we can see now that

I recall an article a while back about how IBM is so innovative because it had the most patents filed per year on tech or something. I think we can see now that their patenting is less about innovation and more about patent trolling. Quote from the FT article on this below does not seem to show to me that this is the sort of patent that promotes real innovation - "improved navigation using bookmarks" does not seem like a breakthrough patent-worthy innovation, and I wonder how defensible these will be in court. Quote from (https://www.ft.com/content/6f02ce76-e1d6-45d8-b27a-0491281c2507?ftcamp=traffic/partner/feed_headline/us_yahoo/auddev&yptr=yahoo https://www.ft.com/content/6f02ce76-e1d6-45d8-b27a-0491281c2...) The computing giant has accused Airbnb of “building its business” by using patents relating to functions such as “presenting advertising in an interactive service” and “improved navigation using bookmarks”.

egdod 7y ago
Are you quoting from the Abstract or something? The claims are what matters.
- vikramkr 7y ago
  I'm quoting the news article linked.
edge17 7y ago
IBM files a lot of patent because (at least when I was there many years ago), employees and their management chain have strong economic incentives to file anything. Even interns were encouraged to file patents, and as a student it's a great way to beef up your resume. Ironically, even between technology professionals, the patents one files at IBM are great marketing material on the resume. IBM marketing itself as 'the most innovative' does work on the vast majority of the world that isn't in technology.
- johnward 7y ago
  I was pushed several times to get a patent when I worked at IBM. I never did it because I didn't think anything I really did was an "invention". I think they have a whole team dedicated to ghost writing patents.
- choward 7y ago
  > as a student it's a great way to beef up your resume Really? I wouldn't view that as a positive unless we're talking about law students I guess.
  - freejazz 7y ago
    You do understand that lawyers just write the patents that reflect what the INVENTOR invented, right?
  - vikramkr 7y ago
    Law students wouldn't necessarily be filing for patent protection for their inventions? It wouldn't be relevant for them.
  - bluedevil2k 7y ago
    That’s just a cynical response meant to devalue the OP. When people see a few patent #’s on a resume from a kid coming out of college, of course it’s a positive.
    - kovac 7y ago
      Genuinely inventing something, specially nowadays is very difficult. If a number of students start having those (especially if many of them do after an internship at IBM), it can become kind of a red flag. Also, after talking with someone who had obtained a few patents (his work did not nearly reflect the calibre of an inventor), the expensive and convoluted process of filing for a patent means that the uniqueness of an invention may not be the most critical factor when obtaining one. I observed this when I worked at some companies hwo actively discouraged patenting because they had no resources to maintain and defend patents.
    - genocidicbunny 7y ago
      If I see patent #'s on a resume from a college kid, I'm going to actually look up those patents. And I'm only going to view them positively if they are genuinely novel. If I can trivially find prior art or its another of those "with a computer" software patents, it's going to be a very big red flag. Of course, this is just my own anecdote, and you may very well be right in the broader scale.
- TwoBit 7y ago
  They may seem to beef up your resume, but whenever I saw resumes with IBM patents I would ignore the pstents or give them much less weight than any other patents.
JackFr 7y ago
What's weird though, is like why didn't they patent the relational database? No one disputes that was an innovation, or its provenance at IBM. I guess software patents just didn't exist then.
duxup 7y ago
I worked at a place that for a short while had a patent fan CTO. They'd make plaques about the patents and hang them on walls around the company rotating them as they were filed. I'd read them... like 90% of them I'd look at and they were straight up just a basic network design. Some I'm not even sure you could NOT do if you did any basic business process / built a computer network. It was bonkers.
- bdowling 7y ago
  A patent must include enough information for the patent to be useful to a person of ordinary skill in the art, so applicants usually err on the side of including too much background information. It is always the claims at the end of the patent that describe the scope of the invention. Those claims are often only on a small part of what is disclosed.

egdod 7y ago

Are you quoting from the Abstract or something? The claims are what matters.

vikramkr 7y ago
I'm quoting the news article linked.

edge17 7y ago

IBM files a lot of patent because (at least when I was there many years ago), employees and their management chain have strong economic incentives to file anything. Even interns were encouraged to file patents, and as a student it's a great way to beef up your resume. Ironically, even between technology professionals, the patents one files at IBM are great marketing material on the resume. IBM marketing itself as 'the most innovative' does work on the vast majority of the world that isn't in technology.

johnward 7y ago
I was pushed several times to get a patent when I worked at IBM. I never did it because I didn't think anything I really did was an "invention". I think they have a whole team dedicated to ghost writing patents.
choward 7y ago
> as a student it's a great way to beef up your resume Really? I wouldn't view that as a positive unless we're talking about law students I guess.
- freejazz 7y ago
  You do understand that lawyers just write the patents that reflect what the INVENTOR invented, right?
- vikramkr 7y ago
  Law students wouldn't necessarily be filing for patent protection for their inventions? It wouldn't be relevant for them.
- bluedevil2k 7y ago
  That’s just a cynical response meant to devalue the OP. When people see a few patent #’s on a resume from a kid coming out of college, of course it’s a positive.
  - kovac 7y ago
    Genuinely inventing something, specially nowadays is very difficult. If a number of students start having those (especially if many of them do after an internship at IBM), it can become kind of a red flag. Also, after talking with someone who had obtained a few patents (his work did not nearly reflect the calibre of an inventor), the expensive and convoluted process of filing for a patent means that the uniqueness of an invention may not be the most critical factor when obtaining one. I observed this when I worked at some companies hwo actively discouraged patenting because they had no resources to maintain and defend patents.
  - genocidicbunny 7y ago
    If I see patent #'s on a resume from a college kid, I'm going to actually look up those patents. And I'm only going to view them positively if they are genuinely novel. If I can trivially find prior art or its another of those "with a computer" software patents, it's going to be a very big red flag. Of course, this is just my own anecdote, and you may very well be right in the broader scale.
TwoBit 7y ago
They may seem to beef up your resume, but whenever I saw resumes with IBM patents I would ignore the pstents or give them much less weight than any other patents.

JackFr 7y ago

What's weird though, is like why didn't they patent the relational database? No one disputes that was an innovation, or its provenance at IBM. I guess software patents just didn't exist then.

duxup 7y ago

I worked at a place that for a short while had a patent fan CTO. They'd make plaques about the patents and hang them on walls around the company rotating them as they were filed. I'd read them... like 90% of them I'd look at and they were straight up just a basic network design. Some I'm not even sure you could NOT do if you did any basic business process / built a computer network. It was bonkers.

bdowling 7y ago
A patent must include enough information for the patent to be useful to a person of ordinary skill in the art, so applicants usually err on the side of including too much background information. It is always the claims at the end of the patent that describe the scope of the invention. Those claims are often only on a small part of what is disclosed.