4 ms·

What reasons could there be for not assigning all Google's patents to this policy from day one? I hope Google aren't going to pick and choose the areas they wi

• zmmmmm 14y ago
  Yes. Just 10 patents?! This seems like a joke. It just makes it seem like they cherry picked 10 patents that are probably bogus, valueless or would generate too much bad PR if they ever used them anyway and instead of throwing them away, thought they could make a little PR exercise out of it. If Google believes in the principle of this move then it should be putting in a very large number of patents, at least every single patent that they have acquired primarily for defensive measures (we hope, most of them). If it doesn't believe in the principle of it then it should not be doing it at all.
• abraham 14y ago
  Every single patent has to be reviewed and get the creators to agree. Some patents will have special agreements that might create conflicts with such an agreement.
• zacharypinter 14y ago
  I suspect they're just being cautious with the legal side this early on. One reason to be cautious about the patents under the pledge: there might be some grey area in the language where say, a competitor could make hostile moves against Google while still falling under the protection of the pledge via shell companies. Side note: isn't this already their internal policy? When has Google ever gone after open source projects with any of their patents?
  • iand 14y ago
    They never have gone after FOSS projects, which makes it all the more strange that they haven't been willing put all their patents under this. Presumably they have no outstanding suits that would be affected.
    • zacharypinter 14y ago
      I don't know. They're trying to create a legal contract that binds them and stays valid as long as the duration of the patent. I'd be pretty careful about putting every patent available under that agreement until I was sure that it couldn't be used against me in an unintended way.