Dear Google, Commit Your Broad Patents to a Defensive License

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/10/dear-google-commit-your-broad-patents-defensive-license

by DiabloD3 • 13 years ago

121 57 13 years ago

anon1385• 13 years ago

Google use patents offensively when it suits them. They are not on our side.

http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-13-406_en.htm

The European Commission has informed Motorola Mobility of its preliminary view that the company's seeking and enforcing of an injunction against Apple in Germany on the basis of its mobile phone standard-essential patents ("SEPs") amounts to an abuse of a dominant position prohibited by EU antitrust rules

pavanky4• 13 years ago

The Commission opened the investigation in April 2012.

While the process of buying out had begun at this point, it wasn't finalized until May 2012. I am not sure how much "Google" had to do with this decision.

bsullivan016• 13 years ago

Nice one, others did it, not Google.

Too bad this notice was published on 6 May 2013. Surely Google had time to stop whatever Motorola was doing until May 2013 but decided not to, even if Google had no hand in pushing Motorola to do this.

devx2• 13 years ago

Motorola already started that battle before Google bought them In fact, there were some theories that Google bought Motorola because they were about to attack other Android OEM's, too. I'm sure that's not the only reason, but it probably played a role. I know just weeks before the acquisition was announced, Motorola's CEO implied his intention of going after other Android OEM's.

bsullivan016• 13 years ago

Now, we understand you may never assert this patent. Given your history, you may only be acquiring it "defensively."

This is the same argument as Obama used for the bill allowing indefinite detentions https://www.aclu.org/national-security/president-obama-signs... without a trial: "I will never use it" or something like that. The point is that it should never exist, what happens next year or five years from now?

By the way Google is a convicted patent troll, http://finance.yahoo.com/news/microsoft-says-wins-patent-tri...

pavanky4• 13 years ago

Though the award was just half of the $29 million in damages Microsoft had sought, the company hailed today’s ruling as a landmark victory “telling Google to stop abusing patents.” But the patent battle predates Google’s 2011 acquisition of Motorola Mobility. Microsoft first sued the phone maker in 2010 for overcharging on patent licensing.

Source: http://techcrunch.com/2013/09/04/motorola-versus-microsoft/

Please try to stop inventing facts. EFF does this thing for a living, I would think they would not miss something as obvious.

skj• 13 years ago

I see examples, time and time again, of companies (especially Microsoft) twisting facts to make sound-byte-style comments that make Google look bad.

However, I cannot think of a single example where Google has done that about any company.

Can someone prove me wrong?

throwawaykf0216• 13 years ago

As always, things are more nuanced than "it started before the acquisition". (A previous comment of mine has a bit more detail: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6332432)

Basically, Google had more than a year after the acquisition to settle rather than, not only losing the patent lawsuit, but being convicted for pursuing it in bad faith. I mean, that makes them look pretty darn bad, and I was surprised Google let it happen. But given that tech forums and media has decided not to care about it, I guess it was the right choice for them.

Please try to stop inventing facts. EFF does this thing for a living, I would think they would not miss something as obvious.

Non sequitur. I have seen the EFF use embellishment when it suits their agenda.

devx2• 13 years ago

How about Microsoft and Apple? Do they get a free pass from this, because they're less likely to do it, so why even bother asking them?

I'm not defending Google, and I support EFF's request. I'm just saying this seems to happen quite often. For example, even though Apple was trying to make things better for Foxconn employees, they were actually the ones being targeted and criticized "for not doing enough", a lot more than the other Foxconn customers were.

devcpp• 13 years ago

They're the patent trolls we're trying to defend against. Are you also going to ask the NSA to protect people's privacy?

skore• 13 years ago

It's not about fairness, it's about trying to find the right point to apply pressure and create a public discussion.

Both Apple and Microsoft could not care less about how terrible they are in their (ab)use of patents and they particularly don't care how customers perceive their use of patents. Challenging them gives you a zero percent chance to succeed. In fact, they have a lot of clients and customers who might even cheer them on. In any case, they have spent a lot of time and energy to spin this in the past and they would just repeat that pattern.

There is a very tiny chance that you would have success with Google - even if you don't succeed with them directly, you might get the ball rolling on a public discussion. Trying Apple or Microsoft is a surefire way to kill any such discussion very quickly.

jrockway• 13 years ago

There are two factors at play.

Imagine you want a date. Do you call up your favorite celebrity and ask him or her out? No. You find someone that you like that has a greater than 51% chance of actually saying yes. (OK, it doesn't need to be 51% since you stand to lose less than you could gain. But some mental calculation like that is going on.)

The other factor is Internet hype. Try this: write a story involving Google or Apple as the protagonist, submit it to HN or Reddit, and watch as the Internet goes crazy for it. The companies are "hot" now, and merely mentioning them sells newspapers (or pageviews, or Reddit karma, or whatever). If what you're writing is technically true and contains controversy, all the better.

The first factor rules out Apple. The second factor rules out Microsoft. And who's left?

bsullivan016• 13 years ago

Or maybe the two faced Google is the one trying to win brownie points with the tech crowd, while applying for patents on bill splitting?

wissler• 13 years ago

I agree with the sentiment but as a publicly owned company it may be considered in breach of duty to stockholders to commit to such a thing. These companies are about only one thing: how much money can we get? If they make good stuff along the way, that's OK, but that is not their purpose. It's a reversal of proper means and ends. In our system, money is the end, creating things is the means. In a proper system, it's the reverse.

calt• 13 years ago

And google is the king of unusual business models. It can be in a company's wallet's best interest to be moral if it drives up sales and trust. I can think of countless companies that exist in the "we're green so buy us" space.

cromwellian3• 13 years ago

One of the issues is how you define "defensive" purposes. If you are locked in an ecosystem battle with opponents who are fighting on multiple fronts over years (Microsoft shaking down Android vendors, Apple suing to ban and restrict competition), then you yourself may never be sued directly, but your interests are nevertheless, still being attacked indirectly. It's like a Cold War where your client states are fighting it out against other superpowers.

Thus, is it "offensive" if Apple sues one of your customers over a stupid patent on phone number extraction via regular expressions, or Microsoft sues over FAT32, and you retaliate by suing them because they built a bill-splitting app into their product? Or must they launch a nuclear missile directly at your capital before you're considered justified in a counter-offensive?

The hope I think of asserting these kinds of patents is that mutually assured destruction results in detente. You build up a nuclear arsenal so that it becomes unthinkable by your opponent to attack, and this is undermined if you hold yourself to some kind of pledge never to use them, or never to use them unless your capital is bombed directly.

What the EFF is asking for is a nuclear non-proliferation treaty and test ban, but they are asking the weaker player (who has fewer weapons) to give up their weapons and give up making, and not the superpowers.

bsullivan016• 13 years ago

Let's cut the crap and get to the point: are you saying that the Patent Office should grant a patent for tip splitting to Google? Yes or no?

It's sad and hilarious at the same time to see Googlers defend these ridiculous positions as their company shifts strategy every week chasing an extra dollar. Who knows what you'll defend next week.

You build up a nuclear arsenal so that it becomes unthinkable by your opponent to attack

Redmond and Palo Alto are shaking in their boots, this tab splitting innovation from the smartest people on earth really tipped the balance :-). Apple and Microsoft have been building operating systems and patenting each step of it for 30-40 years. That's why every Android manufacturer bowed to Microsoft

afsina• 13 years ago

You would cry if you see those "patents" MS is using for extortion. Most have nothing to do with OS. If any is related, MS is too scared to disclose it because it would be against Linux or Unix (which is around for 40-50 years).

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/02/the-three-patents... http://androidcommunity.com/barnes-noble-reveals-microsofts-...

cheald• 13 years ago

I don't think the patent should be granted. I also think software patents are unequivocally bullshit.

All that said, Google's playing the game here. You file for whatever you can, because the cost of filing is minimal. You take whatever sticks. You then use your collection as a latent threat to deter other more sue-happy players from challenging you on some bullshit claim because of some bullshit software patent they hold, because the greater the chance that they're infringing on some bullshit claim on some bullshit patent you hold, the more bargaining power you have to force a beneficial a cross-licensing agreement rather than an expensive legal judgment.

The problem is that software patents exist and that the USPTO grants them and that the courts enforce them and that companies like Microsoft and Apple assert them as tools to stifle competitors (as opposed to protecting actual innovation). Refusing to play the game just leaves Google in a weak position.

cromwellian3• 13 years ago

Let's get this straight, I agree wholeheartedly with Oracle (prior to their buying Sun), I don't believe in software patents period. But I also don't believe that people should have nuclear weapons. That doesn't mean I think the US should unilaterally disarm.

Apple and Microsoft built their operating systems during a period when many people thought you shouldn't patent software, indeed, when Bill Gates wrote Microsoft Basic, thee wasn't even widespread agreement on software copyright. They were able to appropriate what came before them mostly for free, and operate in an environment of relative legal calm. And now they've benefited from the privilege of that, they want to turn around and maintain their empires by punishing up and coming enterprises who threaten to disrupt them by poisoning the atmosphere.

Where would Apple be if Xerox had behaved like Apple and MSFT with respect to litigiousness? Where would the PC revolution have gone if IBM had won against the clone makers and maintained a monopoly over the PC? Apple is trying to "own" the smartphone like IBM tried to own the PC, not content with $150 billion in cash and 50% of the US market, they want to use the courts to prevent competition.

Until the US Patent Office/Courts stops granting bogus patents period, and nullifies the power of the existing software patents, the only way to fight the system is to use it.

alwaysdoit• 13 years ago

Detente is still chilling to the rest of the industry. It raises the barrier to entry for anyone who would potentially wish to compete. I think it would be better to fight it out and prove just how broken the system really is.

throwawaykf0216• 13 years ago

Microsoft shaking down Android vendors

Please can we stop saying this? I can write a whole essay on how licensing patents is the norm in tech industries, and how Microsoft (and Apple) are using patents exactly as they were meant to be, and so on.

But since you're a Google employee (IIRC), I'll just point out that it was Google that was actually convicted and made to pay 14 million for doing what you are accusing Microsoft of doing.

mda3• 13 years ago

I would love to see that essay of yours. I think this issue is not enough said and he should not stop at all.

magicalist5• 13 years ago

This Ars Technica article[1] lists the five patents they were demanding ridiculously high license fees for. Please, by all means, explain how demanding the same fee they would for licensing Windows Phone itself[2] for such ridiculously terrible patents is exactly how the patent system is supposed to work.

Patent cross licensing is incredibly common in the tech world, but this was not an example of that. This was Microsoft taking the playbook from the RIAA and the porn industry and betting they can get a large chunk of money out of companies by setting the license fee at the perfect level so that it was safer to settle than to countersue.

[1] http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2011/03/long-battle-likel...

[2] http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2011/03/long-battle-likel...

edit: below, afsina provided an even more detailed look at the three patents that became key to the barnes and noble ITC complaint:

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/02/the-three-patents...

throwawaykf0216• 13 years ago

Too late to edit, but as pointed out down-thread, I'd like to note that my use of the word "convicted" in this post was inaccurate, as this was a civil case. The correct wording should have been something along the lines of "A federal jury ruled in favor of Microsoft and ordered Google to pay 14 million in damages."

magicalist5• 13 years ago

I agree with you -- one man's "defensive" lawsuit is another's overbroad patent trolling -- but I agree more with the EFF. If Google is going to go for this kind of patent, then it would be good to see a firmer (and much larger) commitment to something like their "Open Patent Non-Assertion Pledge"[1].

I'd breathe easier about these crap patents if I knew they were functioning only as land mines for bad parties out there. Of course, they shouldn't exist in the first place and real patent trolls have nothing to worry about, since they produce nothing that you can countersue over in the first place...but the EFF is right that this is the right thing to do in this case. skore brings up a good point below[2] that it's not really about fairness. Google is a company that prides itself on being better than using "vague, overbroad" patents, so best to use that as leverage to make sure a big presence in the industry continues as a good(ish) actor and use that as a fixed point for continued change.

[1] http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/08/google-adds-79-pa...

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6539746

javajosh• 13 years ago

What is the nature of the EFF's power? Can they harm Google calling them a hypocrite[1][2] if only via reputation or public shaming? Will programmers on certain forums, for example, be less likely to accept a Google position because of Google's patent policies, especially ones that are highlighted by the EFF?

Then I think: apart from fearing the mighty EFF's vast and influential power (ha), what other concerns might motivate the patent decision maker at google (whoever that is) to take action in this case? Perhaps they are motivated by the respect of their colleagues. Perhaps they have something I read about in college, called a "conscience", which I was led to believe was a powerful influencer of individual behaviors. Wouldn't that be amazing, if the decision-maker at Google actually told the world that their conscience wouldn't let them take a certain action they believed to be wrong? That would be a massive win, in so many ways, and for so many people.

And I, for one, might call back that Google recruiter.

[1] http://googlepublicpolicy.blogspot.com/2013/02/lets-defend-i...

[2]http://www.geekwire.com/2013/joke-google-seeks-patent-splitt...

throwawaykf0216• 13 years ago

To be fair, something that gets the extreme cases of bill-splitting right probably deserves a patent, if not a Nobel. After all, Bistromathics is the most powerful computational force known to parascience...

Dear Google, Commit Your Broad Patents to a Defensive License

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