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Google is lying if they are pretending that Apple and MSFT have started the software patent issues. And they clearly could have tried harder for the Nortel pate

Google is lying if they are pretending that Apple and MSFT have started the software patent issues. And they clearly could have tried harder for the Nortel patents if they wanted to. How about try to not just bid a magical number but actually try and win auctions instead? If Google really cared about the issue of PATENTS they'd be putting as much leverage behind changing the patent laws and not just calling sour grapes for themselves. I haven't seen them jumping in and defending (actually small) tech companies from litigation or doing much more than... a blog posting. They're also saying that the Nortel patents are dubious, but I doubt it. A legacy company like Nortel probably had a lot of patents made long ago that are worth their weight in gold. What is Google doing about it (based on this blog post)? Not fighting the patent system itself but of course trying to overturn the patent sale, buy more patents for themselves and basically become involved in the back and forth that had predominated software patents for a while now. This is a blog post from Google about how they want to be heavy hitters with patents too. They want to throw their weight around with patents just like everyone else and use the system in the exact same way as this axis of evil who are conspiring against them.

Steko 15y ago
The incredible irony is one of the major benefits of patents is "openness" and public disclosure of techniques. The alternative to patents is massive secrecy, sorta like Google's search algorithm.
- ericd 15y ago
  Openness + death by a thousand papercut licensing fees whenever you try to write any piece of software. I'll take secrecy and copyright, thanks.
- kelnos 15y ago
  Isn't PageRank patented and therefore public? I believe the patent is held by Stanford and exclusively licensed to Google. Of course, Google's search algo has evolved considerably from the early Stanford days and is secret. I'd prefer that to patents in most cases, though. Trade secret law should be good enough for most things. And I think if it's not, then it shouldn't be patentable. If I can figure out how to make a decent multi-touch UI just by taking 10 minutes and playing with a device that has one, that feels unpatentable to me.
- aristidb 15y ago
  Can you actually read software patents? To me they're undecipherable. "Openness" isn't worth a lot if it's all written in a language that no actual software developer understands.
orangecat 15y ago
How about try to not just bid a magical number but actually try and win auctions instead? After pi billion they went up to over $4B before giving up. They want to throw their weight around with patents just like everyone else and use the system in the exact same way as this axis of evil who are conspiring against them. This is utterly unsupported by anything.

Steko 15y ago

The incredible irony is one of the major benefits of patents is "openness" and public disclosure of techniques. The alternative to patents is massive secrecy, sorta like Google's search algorithm.

ericd 15y ago
Openness + death by a thousand papercut licensing fees whenever you try to write any piece of software. I'll take secrecy and copyright, thanks.
kelnos 15y ago
Isn't PageRank patented and therefore public? I believe the patent is held by Stanford and exclusively licensed to Google. Of course, Google's search algo has evolved considerably from the early Stanford days and is secret. I'd prefer that to patents in most cases, though. Trade secret law should be good enough for most things. And I think if it's not, then it shouldn't be patentable. If I can figure out how to make a decent multi-touch UI just by taking 10 minutes and playing with a device that has one, that feels unpatentable to me.
aristidb 15y ago
Can you actually read software patents? To me they're undecipherable. "Openness" isn't worth a lot if it's all written in a language that no actual software developer understands.

orangecat 15y ago

How about try to not just bid a magical number but actually try and win auctions instead? After pi billion they went up to over $4B before giving up. They want to throw their weight around with patents just like everyone else and use the system in the exact same way as this axis of evil who are conspiring against them. This is utterly unsupported by anything.