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What about Apple? They have used saimilar tactic. How about Oracle? IBM? Cisco? Lost respect for those too? Pretty much every company follows similar tactic to

by barista 15y ago

What about Apple? They have used saimilar tactic. How about Oracle? IBM? Cisco? Lost respect for those too? Pretty much every company follows similar tactic to protect its interest. The fact Google does not use it is not because they "do no evil" but that they don't have any patents to ask money for.

yuhong 15y ago
They do have patents, they just don't use them the same way.
abecedarius 15y ago
This is in fact one of the reasons for my higher opinion of Google over Apple.
zmmmmm 15y ago
> The fact Google does not use it is not because they "do no evil" but that they don't have any patents to ask money for. At this point though, with thousands of phd level engineers and probably tens of thousands of the smartest people on the planet working for them, you have to conclude that the reason they have no patents is not that they are unable to produce patents, but rather a conscious choice that they don't want to. The Nortel auction was fascinating. After leading the bidding Google just left the table and let its competitors buy up all the patents - patents that may very well injure Google in the future. I find it really weird that they opted out of at least buying some "protection" - in the end I can only put it down to a matter of principle - which is something I do respect them for.
- CamperBob 15y ago
  It was probably a reasonable risk/return calculation on their part. What are the odds that they will be on the losing end of more than $3.14 billion in patent suits? How much interest can $3.14 billion earn between now and the time these hypothetical damages will have to be paid? The calculation might have gone differently if it hadn't been for the fairly recent SCOTUS decision that made it more difficult for a plaintiff to obtain a permanent injunction against distribution of an allegedly-infringing product ( http://www.patentlyo.com/patent/2006/05/supreme_court_v.html http://www.patentlyo.com/patent/2006/05/supreme_court_v.html ). If it hadn't been for that decision, the Nortel patents might have been worth $3 billion and then some.

by barista 15y ago

yuhong 15y ago

They do have patents, they just don't use them the same way.

abecedarius 15y ago

This is in fact one of the reasons for my higher opinion of Google over Apple.

zmmmmm 15y ago

> The fact Google does not use it is not because they "do no evil" but that they don't have any patents to ask money for. At this point though, with thousands of phd level engineers and probably tens of thousands of the smartest people on the planet working for them, you have to conclude that the reason they have no patents is not that they are unable to produce patents, but rather a conscious choice that they don't want to. The Nortel auction was fascinating. After leading the bidding Google just left the table and let its competitors buy up all the patents - patents that may very well injure Google in the future. I find it really weird that they opted out of at least buying some "protection" - in the end I can only put it down to a matter of principle - which is something I do respect them for.

CamperBob 15y ago
It was probably a reasonable risk/return calculation on their part. What are the odds that they will be on the losing end of more than $3.14 billion in patent suits? How much interest can $3.14 billion earn between now and the time these hypothetical damages will have to be paid? The calculation might have gone differently if it hadn't been for the fairly recent SCOTUS decision that made it more difficult for a plaintiff to obtain a permanent injunction against distribution of an allegedly-infringing product ( http://www.patentlyo.com/patent/2006/05/supreme_court_v.html http://www.patentlyo.com/patent/2006/05/supreme_court_v.html ). If it hadn't been for that decision, the Nortel patents might have been worth $3 billion and then some.