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Google, Dropbox, and Others Forge Patent "Arms Control Pact"

Posted by samzenpus on from the working-together dept.

jfruh writes Patent trolling is a serious irritant and financial drain on many big tech companies — but those same companies can't guarantee that their own future management won't sell the patents they own to a 'non-practicing entity', especially in the case of sale or bankruptcy. That's why a number of tech giants, including Google and Dropbox, have formed the 'License or Transfer Network,' in which a patent will automatically be licensed to everyone else in the network in the event that it's sold to a third party.

7 of 73 comments (clear)

  1. Time to abolish patents by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    A "patent defense pool" of tech giants will benefit, well, the tech giants, namely the incumbents.

    The idea of patents was to foster innovation. Anything that tilts the tables against newcomers and favors the established players is working against that. It's not the established players that are dependent on the law in order to benefit from their inventions: they have all the means to exploit them themselves and benefit via first-to-market and the marketing power of their reputation.

    1. Re:Time to abolish patents by phantomfive · · Score: 1, Insightful

      All the same, it's hard for me to see Dropbox as a 'tech giant'

      --
      "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
    2. Re:Time to abolish patents by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      This protects tech giants, not newcomers, against patent trolls. So it is tilting the tables against newcomers and favors the established players.

      The patent trolls are not players. They are table grenades, and tilting the table will roll them to the newcomers.

    3. Re:Time to abolish patents by StripedCow · · Score: 3, Insightful

      But let's say you had a patent on something which earned you a couple of thousand dollars a month.
      Would you then still think the same?

      (Just playing devil's advocate here.)

      --
      If Pandora's box is destined to be opened, *I* want to be the one to open it.
    4. Re:Time to abolish patents by Mr0bvious · · Score: 3, Insightful

      This is a fair question, and perhaps I would think differently in this position. I'm not in this position so my view is not tainted by my greed.

      So my view is based on what I see as the better situation for the greater good of all, and I'm giving little to no consideration to any individual (be it a person or other entity).

      I could also counter with the converse argument - consider I had an idea that could yield me a couple of thousand dollars a month but I can't due to a patent issue then ....

      --
      Never happened. True story.
  2. Clear Cut Collusion by sexconker · · Score: 4, Insightful

    This is a clear cut instance of collusion.
    They should be forced to continue to defend their patents or to release the patents to everyone on the same terms.
    Patent groups, from this shit to MPEG to BluRay to whatever, destroy innovation more than any individual patents do.

  3. Time to abolish patents by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    This protects against patent trolls, not newcomers