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The homepage of Joe Duffy says "I’ve been granted 45 patents, with another 33 pending" (see his homepage under /about via google cache since the page is down du
by molsson 13y ago
The homepage of Joe Duffy says "I’ve been granted 45 patents, with another 33 pending" (see his homepage under /about via google cache since the page is down due to load from HN). Bragging about patents doesn't exactly make me like the guy. Has he been living under a rock, why would he write that on his about page?
Anyway, he says explicitly that he cannot reveal any details at this point; i.e. Microsoft has filed patents related to this "new langage" and can't talk about it until they are approved. He also claims to have been working on his "new language" for 5 years already; I wonder what those 33 patents he says he got pending are? Or maybe he patented 33 things related to something he hasn't been working on for the last 5 years? Not likely. Microsoft will get more and more desperate as they continue to be marginalized in terms of market cap, market share and developer mindshare. They have a long track record of simply being dicks (i.e. just look at how they charge royalty for every android phone, and how they created the Rock Star patent troll company etc).
It would be better for everyone if Microsoft stayed out of the "perf + productivity" language niche.
- throwawaykf03 13y ago> Bragging about patents doesn't exactly make me like the guy. Has he been living under a rock... No, you've been living in an echo chamber :-) Open source enthusiasts may well want to share their work for free (or statistically more likely, use others' work for free), but that's their prerogative. Most companies will not give away their competitive advantage and will seek to protect it anyway they can, and similarly, they are well within their rights to do so. However, open source seems to be the dominant religion around here. And also you have a lot of Google employees here, and Google is a bit handicapped when it comes to patents at the moment. This is why you hear a disproportionate amount of anti-patent rhetoric. Outside these circles, most engineers are either ignorant about patents or quite proud of their patents.
- thomasahle 13y ago> you have a lot of Google employees here, and Google is a bit handicapped when it comes to patents at the moment. This is why you hear a disproportionate amount of anti-patent rhetoric. Do you actually belive this? > most engineers are either ignorant about patents or quite proud of their patents. Cooperate America seems to be the only echo chamber that belives software patents are a pretty neat idea.
- throwawaykf03 13y ago>Do you actually belive this? I haven't seen a single Google employee (that I know of) here or on other forums who's had a nice thing to say about patents. I'm sure there are some pro-patent Google employees, they just don't seem to post on here :-) But I don't understand what you mean by "corporate America"... Aren't companies that are complaining loudly about software patents also part of "corporate America"? How is that an echo chamber?
- alok-g 13y ago>> Joe Duffy says "I’ve been granted 45 patents, with another 33 pending" >> Bragging about patents doesn't exactly make me like the guy. Genuinely asking, do you see putting information on patents as bragging or more generally as a negative? I have also been putting the same on my profile, so would like to understand your viewpoint better to see if I should remove it. My side of the story: I have nearly always worked for big technology companies and for various reasons they are always very protective of their IP. This means that an employee can barely talk about his/her projects at the company without making the description too generic. People are barely allowed to publish papers on their work, make contributions to open-source (unless with consent of the employer, which is rare), and cannot have side projects [1]. Such generic descriptions of the projects and a mere mention of the skills do not leave many options for employees to demonstrate their expertise. Recommendations is one way (and I correspondingly have plenty of stellar ones on my LinkedIn profile), but is also gamed a lot: I know several cases where non-deserving people also have great recommendations. Then comes the patent filings. I have been known as a well-respected and "a prolific inventor" in my last employment, the "most original thinker" at college, etc. Yet, it is hard to reflect this on the profile or CV since these terms by themselves are also often overused. [1] While it may be a common practice to have side projects, the employment agreements most big technology companies have, that most people sign without even reading, place a lot of restrictions on the side projects. These issues have been discussed on HN several times before. In fact, since most employees do not even read these agreements, talk about negotiating on them, the equilibrium position for these agreements is heavily biased in the favor of employers than of employees.