10 ms·

Drummond is very smart. And he's always been friendly to me. But that's not to be confused with Google being the good guy. They tried to buy these patents an

• watty 15y ago
  They're being painted as a victim because they are. Patents are BS and continue to hinder innovation. They may be anti-competitive in other areas (although I don't know specifics). Can you provide some sources?
  • cma 15y ago
    They sure touted their PageRank patent.
    • yanw 15y ago
      Having patents doesn't mean you agree with the state of the patent system, also they have yet to sue anyone over patents.
    • azakai 15y ago
      They are proud of it, for sure. But have they ever used it to sue anyone?
    • chaz 15y ago
      The patent is owned by Stanford. From Wikipedia: The name "PageRank" is a trademark of Google, and the PageRank process has been patented (U.S. Patent 6,285,999). However, the patent is assigned to Stanford University and not to Google. Google has exclusive license rights on the patent from Stanford University. The university received 1.8 million shares of Google in exchange for use of the patent; the shares were sold in 2005 for $336 million.
      • rtrunck 15y ago
        Being an exclusive licensee provides significant rights to Google, for example, they could sue for infringement of that patent.
        • kelnos 15y ago
          I'm not sure that they can. I don't believe patent law provides for anyone by the patent holder to sue for infringement. Could be wrong, though, but I seem to recall a similar story in the news not too long ago.
          • yardie 15y ago
            I believe they can. Stanford is still the patent holder and is charged with enforcing their patent but they could put it into the exclusive contract with Google that Google is the enforcer under contract by Stanford. Of course when Google's attorneys send out C&Ds they will need to mention the stanford-Google relationship and not misrepresent that they are the patent holder.
    • MikeCapone 15y ago
      To me, that one seems to actually be a non-obvious, patentable idea. It made the world a better place. This isn't 1-click checkout or clickable phone numbers on a smart phone... But I don't think Google actually sued anyone when most other search engines started using that method. Correct me if I'm wrong.
      • ldar15 15y ago
        It is exactly the kind of innovative solution that multiple developers would discover independently. It is exactly the kind of idea that does not need a 17 year monopoly to incentivize investors to provide cash for its development.
        • kenjackson 15y ago
          In fact multiple people did discover similar strategies at the same point in time such as: http://www.cs.cornell.edu/home/kleinber/auth.pdf http://www.cs.cornell.edu/home/kleinber/auth.pdf
      • VladRussian 15y ago
        evaluating/rating articles on the base of references and citations of them in other articles has been a useful and known practice in academia. Applying it to web pages was innovative (compare with original _invention_ of such algorithm for the scientific articles), yet doesn't seems to be something that warrants involvement of government force to keep others from applying the same academia article evaluation principles to web pages.
  • Steko 15y ago
    They're "the victim" of patents only because they have chosen to pursue a pattern of willfully infringing on competing companies patents.
    • slackerIII 15y ago
      How do you know it is willful? That is an important word when it comes to patent infringement.
      • kenjackson 15y ago
        I think willful infringement will play a large role in this Oracle case. For that case, we'll probably know over the next year if it was willful.
      • Steko 15y ago
        I don't claim to know anything. I assumed it's willful because it's been a repeated pattern of behavior and because of the full court propaganda press they have been making against patents.
        • hn_decay 15y ago
          This is an incredible claim. Do you realize that Apple and Microsoft are being sued constantly as well?
          • Steko 15y ago
            I don't know what's incredible about it. That a company that copies things might infringe patents? Do I realize that Apple infringes patents? Yes. Are you aware that Apple doesn't cry about how it's the end of the world and we're all going to have to pay more for the next iphone because they had to write Nokia a check for Nokia's previous and substantial innovations to mobile?
            • kelnos 15y ago
  • maercsrats 15y ago
    There is an anti-compete lawsuit going on between google and skyhook: http://www.engadget.com/2011/05/10/internal-emails-reveal-googles-desperation-over-skyhooks-andro/ http://www.engadget.com/2011/05/10/internal-emails-reveal-go... There needs to be significant patent/ip reform in this country, there's no question about that. Google isn't necessarily a "good guy", though. There is a lot of money to be made out there and all of the big guys are using everything at their disposal to gain the upper hand.
    • chocopuff 15y ago
      The hypocrisy is unbelievable: Google is a major investor in patent troll firm Intellectual Ventures. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intellectual_Ventures http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intellectual_Ventures http://www.techflash.com/seattle/2011/05/intellectual-ventures-reveals-investors.html http://www.techflash.com/seattle/2011/05/intellectual-ventur... Amazon, Apple, Cisco, eBay, Microsoft, etc. are also investors but they are not acting like whiny babies and acting all high and mighty going around preaching about how patents are destroying innovation.
• lopatamd 15y ago
  if Google had won the patents, they wouldn't attack Apple or Microsoft.. they would've use them just for the defence.. i really hope everything will be ok with android and all this patents troll.. otherwise it ruins AAPL and M$ image.
• yanw 15y ago
  Your innuendo doesn't prove any 'anti-competitive' practices, consorting to band a patent cartel in order to strangle opensource on the other hand is.
  • coliveira 15y ago
    I don't think that either side is doing the right thing here, but saying that a group is trying to "strangle opensource" is just a distortion of the facts. Android is just a very small part of the open source ecosystem, and the platform was clearly not created to promote open source, but to use it as leverage to quickly spread a free (as in beer) mobile operating system.
• nextparadigms 15y ago
  We're talking about patents here. Even if what you say is true, does that mean they "deserve" to be crushed by bogus patents? Bogus patents aren't helping anyone, and in at least several cases they have been used by others to hunt Apple and Microsoft, too.
  • davidu 15y ago
    I think you are looking at it inside a box, as an isolated issues. Patent litigation is simply a weapon used by companies offensively or defensively. When in a fight with your competitors you look at your weapons and theirs. When evaluating the visible weaponry of their competitors they see patent litigation near the top of the list. When they look at their arsenal of weapons, they do not see patent litigation at the top of the list. Therefore, they have decided it's better to eliminate patent litigation as a weapon rather than to go into battle against it. Their strategy is to change the rules of what weapons can be used in battle. :-) It's very smart.
    • ZeroGravitas 15y ago
      Isn't this like nation-states trying to prevents wars so that they can compete on building effective societies? It would be perversely cynical to suggest that the nations more confident in their ability to deliver effective societies were somehow cheating by trying to prevent the needless destruction and waste of wars.
      • davidu 15y ago
        It's not like that at all. Your analogy is completely lost on me.
        • kelnos 15y ago
          He's merely pointing out that there are two ways (among others, of course) you can try to win in the marketplaces: 1. Build innovative products that your customers want, and keep iterating and innovating to keep your customers coming back for more. 2. Use the legal system to force your competitors out of your market, or make it so expensive to stay that it's harder to gain market share. Apple has a long and brilliant history of #1, which makes it even more disheartening that it seems like they're resorting to #2 here. While both may be legally valid, which is more beneficial to consumers and society as a whole?
• mithaler 15y ago
  I don't understand your comment. The OP is about Android being attacked through patents instead of through innovation, and you don't seem to be denying that that's what's happening. The article doesn't claim that "Google is always good", nor even that Google never uses anti-competitive practices. So what exactly are you objecting to? I don't think anyone here needs to be reminded that Google is a business and wants to make money.
  • chocopuff 15y ago
    The hypocrisy is unbelievable: Google is a major investor in patent troll firm Intellectual Ventures. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intellectual_Ventures http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intellectual_Ventures http://www.techflash.com/seattle/2011/05/intellectual-ventures-reveals-investors.html http://www.techflash.com/seattle/2011/05/intellectual-ventur... Amazon, Apple, Cisco, eBay, Microsoft, etc. are also investors but they are not acting like whiny babies and acting all high and mighty going around preaching about how patents are destroying innovation. Fact 1: ------- Google was willing to pay for $3-$4 billion for the same Nortel patents. Fact 2: ------- Google's page rank algorithm is patented. if you don't believe in patents then why the hell do you own patents? Fact 3: ------- Let me quote another commenter on another blog: "How many small and innovative companies has Google killed off by replicating what they do and making it available for free? Great way to keep the next Google from springing up." Message to Google: ------------------ You can use other people's technology, you just have to pay for them. You are being sued left and right not because there's some organized propaganda against you, it's because you STOLE from other companies.
    • dangrossman 15y ago
      1) Google needs patents to stay in business because other companies have patents to use against them. 2) See #1. Stanford owns the patent on PageRank because it was developed by Stanford graduate students on an NSF research grant. Not really relevant.
      • juiceandjuice 15y ago
        Even more ironic: Stanford got a significant amount of shares from Google for allowing Google exclusive license. Also, it is a mathematical algorithm in every sense of the word. A lot of patents aren't.
• WorkingDead 15y ago
  I think there is a big difference between litigating your competition away and out competing them. I also see a big difference between the way Google approaches vendor lock in and their competitors do. I also can think of a big name brand competing service for just about everything Google does. Thusly,I disagree with your statement that Google is a monopoly or anti-competitive.
• zmmmmm 15y ago
  > Since Google knows it has better tools to be competitive outside of patents, it is in their interest to eliminate patents as a source of pressure from competitors. This is nonsense. Google has a huge number of smart people working for them - if they wanted to enter a patent war they are extremely well equipped to do so. Everything I've seen from them tells me that they simply culturally biased against doing that. They'd just rather spend their time inventing cool new stuff than suing about old stuff.