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applying for patents is a valid defensive strategy too Yes, if you define "defensive" to mean that they want to guard their proprietary forms of innovation aga
by grellas 16y ago
applying for patents is a valid defensive strategy too
Yes, if you define "defensive" to mean that they want to guard their proprietary forms of innovation against others who might seek to use them during the period of the temporary monopoly they hold on them. But not defensive in the sense of having been obtained in anticipation primarily of being used in litigation defense when others sue Google (which, I think, is how "defensive" is normally used on this topic).
I am no special authority on Google's thinking in this area. Its public actions and comments, though, suggest that it is a company that dislikes and even despises low-quality patents used primarily to foment litigation while supporting the types of patents (like PageRank) that reward innovation. That is pretty much how I read this piece. By the way, I also have an antipathy to flaky patents and strongly believe that the patent system needs reform, but I am not opposed to IP generally, nor to patents (when done properly) in particular.
- _delirium 16y agoDoes Google assert their patents positively, though? I'm not aware of the PageRank patent being much used, despite the fact that there's a whole cottage industry of "PageRank for X" search tools, who not only seem to infringe on the patent, but even advertise the fact that they use a PageRank-derived algorithm (see, e.g., eigenfactor.org).
- grellas 16y agoI think your point is a good one but I am confident that, if Microsoft started using PageRank for Bing, a Google lawsuit (or at least a Stanford lawsuit for the benefit of Google) would be both swift and formidable.
- alexandros 16y agoPageRank-style algorithms are so fundamental to current search tech that I would be shocked if Microsoft wasn't using something along these lines on Bing.
- ZeroGravitas 16y agoDo you think the Nortel patents are flaky? I'm no expert but they seem fairly legit as far as patents go (better than the Google Doodle one for starters), but again I'm not expecting them to be used offensively to extract rents or stifle competitors who haven't initiated patent lawsuits.
- grellas 16y agoNo, not at all, and I did not mean to imply this about the Nortel patents in my comment. Indeed, a company like Nortel very likely would have a large grouping of high-quality patents that truly tie to innovative steps it has taken over the years. Google's aim, I assume, is to get these (and whatever happens to come with them) to help fight off flaky patent challenges in the future.