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Google Awarded Driverless Vehicle Patent
theodp writes "On Tuesday, Google was awarded U.S. Patent No. 8,078,349 for methods and devices for Transitioning a Mixed-mode Autonomous Vehicle from a Human Driven Mode to an Autonomously Driven Mode. From the fast-tracked patent application, which was filed last May and kept under wraps at Google's request: 'The autonomous vehicle may be used as a virtual tour guide of Millennium Park in Chicago. In the example embodiment, the vehicle may have an instruction to drive to the Cloud Gate (Silver Bean) sculpture at Millennium Park. When the vehicle arrives, the autonomous instruction may tell it to wait in the location for a predetermined amount of time, for example 5 minutes. The instruction may then direct the vehicle to drive to the Crown Fountain at Millennium Park and again wait for 5 minutes. Next, the instruction may tell the vehicle to drive to the Ice Rink at Millennium Park and wait for another predetermined amount of time. Finally, the vehicle instruction may tell the vehicle to return to its starting position.'"
Patents are supposed to be publicly recorded so infringement is accidental in the sense that one didn't do their due diligence, not that the information is being deliberately obscured.
"Do no evil", eh Google?
What Google did was make a request for confidentiality under 35 U.S.C. 122(b)(2)(B). Normally patents are kept confidential for 18 months after filing, whereupon they are published by the Patent Office. A 122(b)(2)(B) request keeps the application confidential so long as the applicant doesn't file in another country or make a Patent Cooperation Treaty filing that requires publication at 18 months. Essentially it's confidentiality at the expense of not being able to go international. In this case, it wouldn't have made a difference because the patent issued about 7 months after filing. Even without the 122(b)(2)(B) request the application would not have been published before the patent issued.
So the question becomes...are you paying your licensing fee whenever you make toast?
The patent is publicly available. There's a link right in the summary. The application was confidential, but it was confidential for less time (7 months) than patent applications are by default (18 months) before it was granted. Damages for patent infringement can include time during which the application was pending, but only if the infringer has notice of the application. Since the application was confidential, that doesn't apply here.
Um, no.
I think you are confusing the example task described in TFS with "the patent". That task described in the patent as an example of a single instance of an "autonomous vehicle instruction", but what is patented isn't the ability to execute either that instruction or autonomous vehicle instructions in general, but instead a mechanism for transitioning between autonomous and manual operations, and the example autonomous vehicle instruction is simply an illustration what "autonomous operation" is in that context.
But the summary doesn't mention an implementation of a driverless car. What they mention is methods and devices for Transitioning a Mixed-mode Autonomous Vehicle from a Human Driven Mode to an Autonomously Driven Mode... in other words, Google has patented the switch.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!