7 ms·

Google Patent Purchase Promotion

75 points by mckoss 11y ago

mark_l_watson 11y ago
Google is very flush with cash right now so this is just another opportunity to invest their money. I think that the example of Microsoft shows how important it is for large tech companies to have lots of cash in order to be able to pivot. I think that Microsoft is pivoting very well right now into platform independent productivity software. If, for example, Google's ad revenue diminishes it is important for them to have long tail reserves to experiment with other ways to be profitable.
dataker 11y ago
>remove friction from the patent market and improve the landscape The question really is: whose landscape is that?
amelius 11y ago
Ok, so I have lots of great ideas (even implementations of them), but no money to submit any patents and/or to pay a lawyer.
- throwawaykf05 11y ago
  Some companies like GE will actually buy your unpatented ideas and file patents on them if they like them. You can negotiate how much you get paid for them. Of course, this is in no way as easy as I made it sound, and I've never done it myself.
throwawaykf05 11y ago
1. This is not new in the corporate world. Large companies like GE have patent-buying departments that do something similar, except they are are a lot more flexible (you can sell entire portfolios and even unpatented ideas) and a lot less efficient. The big difference is, other companies advertise their intent as being "driving innovation" rather than starving patent trolls. 2. This is not new for Google either. They have been quietly talking to and buying from various kinds of patent holders for many years now. 3. I'd be very interested to know what kinds of patents they're hoping to buy. Are they looking for "bad" patents to really "disarm the trolls"? Or are they just hoping to get good ones for cheap and use the "patent troll" narrative for PR? Unfortunately, I doubt they'll disclose the results of this promotion.
- minthd 11y ago
  >> you can sell entire portfolios and even unpatented ideas How can you sell an unptaented(or maybe just loosely patent-pending idea you did the work yourself, as a non-lawyer) ?
  - throwawaykf05 11y ago
    I have not done this myself, but know this from a guy who used to work there: They have a portal where you can submit ideas, which they will evaluate and offer to acquire if they like. Of course, they say "ideas", but they're really looking for well developed technologies that haven't been patented yet. I imagine they want fairly detailed technical submissions, maybe a published paper. Something along the lines of "do X on a computer" probably won't do as well. Edit: I don't know how they actually "acquire" it, but I'm guessing they offer payment and a portion of future royalties for exclusive rights. But you do bring up a good point - since there is no patent, the scope of the rights being acquired is legally undefined.
- dragonwriter 11y ago
  > This is not new in the corporate world. I think you don't quite understand what is supposed to be new about it. > Large companies like GE have patent-buying departments that do something similar, except they are are a lot more flexible Google has a patent buying department and program that offers a more flexible, but less well-defined and streamlined process -- this new program refers to it as an option for patents that don't meet the criteria for this experimental new streamlined process. The new part (and Google says this directly) is the attempt the experiment with more streamlined process to reduce friction. > This is not new for Google either. They have been quietly talking to and buying from various kinds of patent holders for many years now. Having a patent purchase program isn't new, and Google doesn't claim that it is (in fact, their materials on the new program point to the pre-existing one as well); what is new is the particular process. > I'd be very interested to know what kinds of patents they're hoping to buy. Are they looking for "bad" patents to really "disarm the trolls"? Or are they just hoping to get good ones for cheap and use the "patent troll" narrative for PR? I don't think there really worried about "for cheap"; I think they want to provide a good experience for sellers so that people interested in arms-length sales of patents (whether the kinds that trolls are most interested or not) that might be useful to Google (whether for troll neutralization or otherwise -- and even good patents in the hands of someone whose interest is to in maximizing short-term return can be harmful to industry players other than the patent-holder, so "bad" patents aren't the only threat to Google out there) have a better chance of being offered to Google, so Google has a chance to act on them. They don't really need them "for cheap", except compared to the cost of potential litigation or workarounds -- to Google or, e.g., its hardware partners -- if some hostile party were to end up holding them.
ikeboy 11y ago
Does anyone else think they're taking over the world one step at a time?
- christianbryant 11y ago
  I'd say one strong leap at a time...
- pinaceae 11y ago
  given their eroding core business - nope.
- ocdtrekkie 11y ago
  It's kinda hard to have any other view of them unless you're blind.
jawns 11y ago
So the question is: Why would you want to sell your patent to Google, rather than some other buyer? In this promotion, Google's answer to that question is that at the very least, you can be sure you're not selling to a patent troll. They may end up using your patent, or they may not, but they are promising that they will not use the slimy tactics associated with patent trolls. But the thing about patent trolls is that they're looking for a very specific type of patent: an overly broad one that probably should not have been issued in the first place. If you don't have that kind of patent, but you do have a patent that is clearly valuable otherwise, then the pool of potential buyers probably won't include patent trolls, so the purported benefit of selling to Google (avoiding selling to patent trolls) is moot. In which case, you might end up getting a good price from Google (the price you yourself set), or you might end up getting a better price from some other buyer. But the nice thing about this promotion is that, assuming you're confident there are other buyers out there, you can set your price a little bit higher than you think it's worth and see if Google is willing to bite. If not, go sell it elsewhere.
- dragonwriter 11y ago
  > So the question is: Why would you want to sell your patent to Google, rather than some other buyer? There are two basic general reasons that a person who would otherwise be willing to sell to an NPE might be interested in selling to Google instead: 1. Google will pay more, and/or 2. Google provides a quicker, easier process for evaluation and decision that means you close the deal and get actual certainty (and the money itself) more quickly and with less of your own time and energy devoted to the process. Google's effort to established a streamlined process with a "identify your patent and price at which you are committed to sell" up front step, and a well defined set of steps with fairly short time windows leading to a final decision, attempts to address both of those. (Provide a smooth decision process on purchase at the seller's desired price.) > In this promotion, Google's answer to that question is that at the very least, you can be sure you're not selling to a patent troll. No, you've got that wrong: that's not the benefit to the seller. That's one of the benefits to Google (and, presuming Google doesn't use patents like a troll, potentially everyone else in the tech industry and everyone indirectly harmed by the drag patent trolls put on the technology market.)
anc84 11y ago
This should really come with a waiver from Google for any submitted patent to be never ever require any royalties or fees (whatever the terms are in patent world).
- dragonwriter 11y ago
  The idea here is to provide a better experience (and equal or better prices) for people who might otherwise sell to trolls. such a term on the transfer would do nothing to enhance the attractiveness of the program to the people Google is looking to do business with (whether or not that's how Google is likely to use the patents), and people who would be motivated to participate by such a term aren't people who otherwise would be likely to sell to trolls, so there is no real reason for such term. Google might subsequently make such a pledge for particular patents it purchases -- or submit them to reciprocal licensing pools, which such a pledge might conflict with or reduce the utility of -- but that's separate from the purchase terms, and there is no good reason to tie them together.
- MCRed 11y ago
  Why would google do that? Do you think they would tolerate for a second if you violated their page rank patent?
- mckoss 11y ago
  Not that far but: "As part of our Patent Acquisition Agreement (see section 4.4), sellers will retain a license back to their patent. For you lawyers out there, the license is “irrevocable, nonexclusive, nontransferable, nonassignable (including by operation of law or otherwise), nonsublicensable, worldwide, [and] fully paidup.”
  - derf_ 11y ago
    > nonexclusive, nontransferable, nonassignable (including by operation of law or otherwise), nonsublicensable That does no one any good except the seller. For any seller, this kind of thing is table-stakes (no one wants to sell someone a gun pointed at their head). But if the seller is specifically concerned about their patent being used offensively on others (which I suspect was the original commenter's concern), then this provision is useless.
amelius 11y ago
Does anybody know why it costs a fee to submit a patent? Wouldn't it be much more fair to small inventors if we could just submit a patent for free, and the moment we'd like to exert that patent in a court, we'd pay for its examination?
- nine_k 11y ago
  Sending email is free. What can be said about signal-to-noise ratio of email? Is there a connection?
  - amelius 11y ago
    The point is, up until the moment the patent is "exerted", the signal does not matter. The process is just a means of recording that the submitter had a certain idea at a certain moment. Which, to me, sounds perfectly legitimate. With this construct, an inventor could go to e.g. Google, and sell them this idea ("potential patent"). This way, small inventors wouldn't need to have a big pile of cash just to secure their ideas.
    - hackcasual 11y ago
      Not really sure with the current climate what we need is more patents. The one thing the fee does do is pay to have it examined which does act as a filter.
    - nine_k 11y ago
      This sounds wrong to me. The idea of the patent is (at leas in part) to protect inventor's investment. When someone spent significant effort researching and prototyping some useful device, it makes sense to pay a small sum for its legal protection from copycats. If someone just stumbled upon an idea, without any plans to use it for profit and without sunk costs that one would like to protect, why grant a patent? Someone else could (and historically did) invent the same thing independently, and put it to actual use. Why impede the efforts of that latter person? While we're at, it let me remind the idea of exponential patent fees. A patent should require e.g. $100 to keep for the first year, $400 for the next year, $1600 for the third year, etc, quadrupling the cost each year. If you're on a gold mine like Singer's needle, or Edison's lamp, or a transistor, you have no trouble paying for that patent for 10 or maybe 20 years. If you patented something useful but minor, you can keep it patented as long as it makes financial sense, and then put it to public domain. If you're a NPE patent troll, you're toast in a really short term.
funnythought 11y ago
Why only patent? Sell everything to Google and live on its mercy…. that is what Google wants.

75 points by mckoss 11y ago

Google is very flush with cash right now so this is just another opportunity to invest their money. I think that the example of Microsoft shows how important it is for large tech companies to have lots of cash in order to be able to pivot. I think that Microsoft is pivoting very well right now into platform independent productivity software. If, for example, Google's ad revenue diminishes it is important for them to have long tail reserves to experiment with other ways to be profitable.

dataker 11y ago

>remove friction from the patent market and improve the landscape The question really is: whose landscape is that?

amelius 11y ago

Ok, so I have lots of great ideas (even implementations of them), but no money to submit any patents and/or to pay a lawyer.

throwawaykf05 11y ago
Some companies like GE will actually buy your unpatented ideas and file patents on them if they like them. You can negotiate how much you get paid for them. Of course, this is in no way as easy as I made it sound, and I've never done it myself.

throwawaykf05 11y ago

1. This is not new in the corporate world. Large companies like GE have patent-buying departments that do something similar, except they are are a lot more flexible (you can sell entire portfolios and even unpatented ideas) and a lot less efficient. The big difference is, other companies advertise their intent as being "driving innovation" rather than starving patent trolls. 2. This is not new for Google either. They have been quietly talking to and buying from various kinds of patent holders for many years now. 3. I'd be very interested to know what kinds of patents they're hoping to buy. Are they looking for "bad" patents to really "disarm the trolls"? Or are they just hoping to get good ones for cheap and use the "patent troll" narrative for PR? Unfortunately, I doubt they'll disclose the results of this promotion.

minthd 11y ago
>> you can sell entire portfolios and even unpatented ideas How can you sell an unptaented(or maybe just loosely patent-pending idea you did the work yourself, as a non-lawyer) ?
- throwawaykf05 11y ago
  I have not done this myself, but know this from a guy who used to work there: They have a portal where you can submit ideas, which they will evaluate and offer to acquire if they like. Of course, they say "ideas", but they're really looking for well developed technologies that haven't been patented yet. I imagine they want fairly detailed technical submissions, maybe a published paper. Something along the lines of "do X on a computer" probably won't do as well. Edit: I don't know how they actually "acquire" it, but I'm guessing they offer payment and a portion of future royalties for exclusive rights. But you do bring up a good point - since there is no patent, the scope of the rights being acquired is legally undefined.
dragonwriter 11y ago
> This is not new in the corporate world. I think you don't quite understand what is supposed to be new about it. > Large companies like GE have patent-buying departments that do something similar, except they are are a lot more flexible Google has a patent buying department and program that offers a more flexible, but less well-defined and streamlined process -- this new program refers to it as an option for patents that don't meet the criteria for this experimental new streamlined process. The new part (and Google says this directly) is the attempt the experiment with more streamlined process to reduce friction. > This is not new for Google either. They have been quietly talking to and buying from various kinds of patent holders for many years now. Having a patent purchase program isn't new, and Google doesn't claim that it is (in fact, their materials on the new program point to the pre-existing one as well); what is new is the particular process. > I'd be very interested to know what kinds of patents they're hoping to buy. Are they looking for "bad" patents to really "disarm the trolls"? Or are they just hoping to get good ones for cheap and use the "patent troll" narrative for PR? I don't think there really worried about "for cheap"; I think they want to provide a good experience for sellers so that people interested in arms-length sales of patents (whether the kinds that trolls are most interested or not) that might be useful to Google (whether for troll neutralization or otherwise -- and even good patents in the hands of someone whose interest is to in maximizing short-term return can be harmful to industry players other than the patent-holder, so "bad" patents aren't the only threat to Google out there) have a better chance of being offered to Google, so Google has a chance to act on them. They don't really need them "for cheap", except compared to the cost of potential litigation or workarounds -- to Google or, e.g., its hardware partners -- if some hostile party were to end up holding them.

ikeboy 11y ago

Does anyone else think they're taking over the world one step at a time?

christianbryant 11y ago
I'd say one strong leap at a time...
pinaceae 11y ago
given their eroding core business - nope.
ocdtrekkie 11y ago
It's kinda hard to have any other view of them unless you're blind.

jawns 11y ago

So the question is: Why would you want to sell your patent to Google, rather than some other buyer? In this promotion, Google's answer to that question is that at the very least, you can be sure you're not selling to a patent troll. They may end up using your patent, or they may not, but they are promising that they will not use the slimy tactics associated with patent trolls. But the thing about patent trolls is that they're looking for a very specific type of patent: an overly broad one that probably should not have been issued in the first place. If you don't have that kind of patent, but you do have a patent that is clearly valuable otherwise, then the pool of potential buyers probably won't include patent trolls, so the purported benefit of selling to Google (avoiding selling to patent trolls) is moot. In which case, you might end up getting a good price from Google (the price you yourself set), or you might end up getting a better price from some other buyer. But the nice thing about this promotion is that, assuming you're confident there are other buyers out there, you can set your price a little bit higher than you think it's worth and see if Google is willing to bite. If not, go sell it elsewhere.

dragonwriter 11y ago
> So the question is: Why would you want to sell your patent to Google, rather than some other buyer? There are two basic general reasons that a person who would otherwise be willing to sell to an NPE might be interested in selling to Google instead: 1. Google will pay more, and/or 2. Google provides a quicker, easier process for evaluation and decision that means you close the deal and get actual certainty (and the money itself) more quickly and with less of your own time and energy devoted to the process. Google's effort to established a streamlined process with a "identify your patent and price at which you are committed to sell" up front step, and a well defined set of steps with fairly short time windows leading to a final decision, attempts to address both of those. (Provide a smooth decision process on purchase at the seller's desired price.) > In this promotion, Google's answer to that question is that at the very least, you can be sure you're not selling to a patent troll. No, you've got that wrong: that's not the benefit to the seller. That's one of the benefits to Google (and, presuming Google doesn't use patents like a troll, potentially everyone else in the tech industry and everyone indirectly harmed by the drag patent trolls put on the technology market.)

anc84 11y ago

This should really come with a waiver from Google for any submitted patent to be never ever require any royalties or fees (whatever the terms are in patent world).

dragonwriter 11y ago
The idea here is to provide a better experience (and equal or better prices) for people who might otherwise sell to trolls. such a term on the transfer would do nothing to enhance the attractiveness of the program to the people Google is looking to do business with (whether or not that's how Google is likely to use the patents), and people who would be motivated to participate by such a term aren't people who otherwise would be likely to sell to trolls, so there is no real reason for such term. Google might subsequently make such a pledge for particular patents it purchases -- or submit them to reciprocal licensing pools, which such a pledge might conflict with or reduce the utility of -- but that's separate from the purchase terms, and there is no good reason to tie them together.
MCRed 11y ago
Why would google do that? Do you think they would tolerate for a second if you violated their page rank patent?
mckoss 11y ago
Not that far but: "As part of our Patent Acquisition Agreement (see section 4.4), sellers will retain a license back to their patent. For you lawyers out there, the license is “irrevocable, nonexclusive, nontransferable, nonassignable (including by operation of law or otherwise), nonsublicensable, worldwide, [and] fully paidup.”
- derf_ 11y ago
  > nonexclusive, nontransferable, nonassignable (including by operation of law or otherwise), nonsublicensable That does no one any good except the seller. For any seller, this kind of thing is table-stakes (no one wants to sell someone a gun pointed at their head). But if the seller is specifically concerned about their patent being used offensively on others (which I suspect was the original commenter's concern), then this provision is useless.

amelius 11y ago

Does anybody know why it costs a fee to submit a patent? Wouldn't it be much more fair to small inventors if we could just submit a patent for free, and the moment we'd like to exert that patent in a court, we'd pay for its examination?

nine_k 11y ago
Sending email is free. What can be said about signal-to-noise ratio of email? Is there a connection?
- amelius 11y ago
  The point is, up until the moment the patent is "exerted", the signal does not matter. The process is just a means of recording that the submitter had a certain idea at a certain moment. Which, to me, sounds perfectly legitimate. With this construct, an inventor could go to e.g. Google, and sell them this idea ("potential patent"). This way, small inventors wouldn't need to have a big pile of cash just to secure their ideas.
  - hackcasual 11y ago
    Not really sure with the current climate what we need is more patents. The one thing the fee does do is pay to have it examined which does act as a filter.
  - nine_k 11y ago
    This sounds wrong to me. The idea of the patent is (at leas in part) to protect inventor's investment. When someone spent significant effort researching and prototyping some useful device, it makes sense to pay a small sum for its legal protection from copycats. If someone just stumbled upon an idea, without any plans to use it for profit and without sunk costs that one would like to protect, why grant a patent? Someone else could (and historically did) invent the same thing independently, and put it to actual use. Why impede the efforts of that latter person? While we're at, it let me remind the idea of exponential patent fees. A patent should require e.g. $100 to keep for the first year, $400 for the next year, $1600 for the third year, etc, quadrupling the cost each year. If you're on a gold mine like Singer's needle, or Edison's lamp, or a transistor, you have no trouble paying for that patent for 10 or maybe 20 years. If you patented something useful but minor, you can keep it patented as long as it makes financial sense, and then put it to public domain. If you're a NPE patent troll, you're toast in a really short term.

funnythought 11y ago

Why only patent? Sell everything to Google and live on its mercy…. that is what Google wants.