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Google Acquires 222 More IBM Patents
itwbennett writes "The newly acquired patents include email management, server backup, tuning and recovery, e-commerce, advertising, mobile web page display, instant messaging, online calendaring, and database tuning. Google hasn't said why they wanted the patents, but it's a good bet they had fighting lawsuits in mind."
...to remember the unbridled software-building activity and creativity of 10 to 12 years ago. Now, patent-fighting dominates it all. 'tis sad....
Religous speak to God. Insane are spoken to by God. When all shut up, one can finally hear Shostakovich in peace
Why did IBM sell the patents instead of licensing them to Google? Wouldn't it be better for IBM to hold the patents to license them to other folks, or have them in their patent defense arsenal?
Someone please enlighten me.
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
Google is offering money. I bet IBM retain a perpetual licence for their own use, so they haven't lost the use of the patents. IBM probably didn't expect to use the patents - they were just part of their armoury. Google needs that armoury more, and is willing to pay for it. Like one army selling weaponry surplus to its needs to another. IBM would probably like the counter-patents broken: as a services company nowadays, IBM has less to gain from patent monopolisation than it used to.
Consciousness is an illusion caused by an excess of self consciousness.
Why is IBM selling them?
We need to double our efforts to eliminate software patents. These patents are preventing us from reaching our full potential. I remember the good old days when we developed software for fun and profit and took inspiration from other programs and added one more innovative feature to them.
Now we have patents for the most obvious bullshit out there. We need to stop this madness. Every time I see these patents I think back to my calendar program. It had a month and day view and allowed you to enter appointments and let you know if there was a scheduling conflict (this was a big deal in 1982/83). I didn't really plan on publishing it in a magazine but I had a dick of a friend who mailed an early version of my program to an Atari magazine in exchange for a 1200 baud modem. The only thing that consoled my anger towards the little turd was the fact that perhaps someone else was improving on it and possibly showing off their improvements to like minded enthusiasts. My family was poor so I really had no recourse. I did learn a valuable lesson of securing my diskettes.
Anyway despite the way the program entered the public domain, it was how things were done back then. Desktop computing was a very new concept and we gathered together at local computer users groups and showed off what we did and explained how we did it. We were basically learning from each other. I support the GPL since I think it preserves some of the philosophy we had back then. Don't get me wrong, I don't agree that all software should be free but I do think that if I share something with you and you add to it then you should share back. I also believe that software patents are counter productive and slowing our progress.
Now I don't think anybody could make a neat program without the risk of being sued by a patent troll or a corporation that wants to keep a monopoly position in their market segment. This shit has to stop. How do we really expect healthy innovation and competition to continue in the next decade with this escalating patent threat.
My rambling rant is over... sigh.
These comments are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of my employer or colleagues...
Can you show me a case where Google attempted patent trolling?
I can't find nor remember any story about Google patent trolling. I had no idea that patents in our current system have anything to do with invention.
Tinfoil hat or good troll. Not sure which as they both post with such conviction.
Why would they sell them to Google?
The main point is that most of the juicy targets for these patents are IBM customers and/or have some license agreements with IBM. That makes it very difficult for IBM to start suing. Also IBM is making a whole load of money so they might suffer big time in any countersuits. Google on the other hand has no choice but to sue.
If Google does't make a special point of going after Microsoft parnters and even exclusive Microsoft customers at this point, when Microsoft already started going after Google's phone manufacturer customers, then Google will be seen as spineless and failing to get proper shareholder value from their patent investments. That's a situation which pretty much suits IBM which has been completely cheated by Microsoft and needs to get revenge.
Apart from that, IBM will of course get an automatic license for these patents and probably has five other patents covering each area in these patents so loses absolutely nothing from the sale.
Time to start Migrating off Microsoft products to things belonging to neutral vendors (I'm not sure I would go for Google personally; actually IBM might well be the best place to buy from..). I certainly wouldn't want to be an exclusive Microsoft shop in the next few years. A bit like being the Czech republic before the second world war really. It doesn't matter who wins, you know you are going to suffer.
=~ s,(.*),<sarcasm>$1</sarcasm>,g if any_point_you_wish();
IBM's probably selling the patents because they forgot to put them to use them in the steaming load of horse crap that is Domino/Lotus.
I think (hope) this was a defensive move.Google, besides shuttering products they've introduced less than a year ago like whack-a-moles, they also innovate. They tend to be pretty good about getting their ducks in a row in any big market move. Look for a "fantastic" new product from Google in the next few months. I'm guessing.
Python: 'And then suddenly you have a language which says "we're all stuck with whatever the whiniest coder wants".'
Two options - you fight the patent threat, or you abandon the project. The latter is a popular option.
Unless the patent holder sends a "pre-trial settlement letter" demanding that the developer not only abandon the project but also pay a monetary settlement and/or forfeit the domain on which the project was hosted.
At one level I agree. The problem is that you're painting with a mighty broad brush. If what you say is true, then virtually all corporate IP is equally evil, and the use of patents to protect one's "ideological turf" is as bad as using IP to extort the corporate landscape. There is nothing inherently wrong with a corporation or person having self interest. In fact self interest is at the crux of our design, even our genes want to survive.
There are ethical questions about what we are willing to do to fulfill our own personal interest. Some look for constructive answers to the question, others find solutions that are destructive. I would argue that defending yourself from constant attack, though not purely constructive is certainly not destructive. Its sad that our business landscape has degenerated into IP turf wars, but Google didn't invent that either. Using IP as a weapon to demand tribute, control economies, destroy competition and/or dominate the playing field would fall under the heading of destructive acts of self interest. Patent Trolls, do not contribute to society, they get wealthy by destroying innovation and they are simply parasites. We need to build a little more pest control into our IP legal system, its horribly broken.
The problem now, is you have companies like Google spending BILLIONS on acquiring Patents. What would happen if someone just said one day, "Oh by the way, no more Patents!"
Billions of dollars in "assets" would evaporate. I suspect they might resist that or require compensation.
It's a snowball that just continues to get bigger gathering momentum along the way. Stopping it may prove a challenge.