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Google Launches a Marketplace To Buy Patents From Interested Sellers

Posted by samzenpus on from the fighting-the-trolls dept.

An anonymous reader writes: Google has announced an experimental marketplace called the Patent Purchase Promotion, which aims to keep patents out of the hands of patent trolls. From the announcement: "By simplifying the process and having a concentrated submission window, we can focus our efforts into quickly evaluating patent assets and getting responses back to potential sellers quickly. Hopefully this will translate into better experiences for sellers, and remove the complications of working with entities such as patent trolls."

40 comments

  1. I'm A King by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I'm King Frosty the first!

    1. Re: I'm A King by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      More like a fruit loop king.

  2. The evil plan by qbast · · Score: 3, Funny

    And in ten years Google hits whole industry with massive patent attack.

  3. Patent troll by SYSS+Mouse · · Score: 2, Funny

    so will Google become a patent troll themselves?

    1. Re:Patent troll by geekmux · · Score: 2

      so will Google become a patent troll themselves?

      Ah, that's King Troll to you, patent peasant.

      Please ensure you address your patent overlords appropriately.

    2. Re:Patent troll by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      while google is often the target of patent troll lawsuits, they themselves have acted the part of troll on more the one occasion.

    3. Re:Patent troll by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      while google is often the target of patent troll lawsuits, they themselves have acted the part of troll on more the one occasion.

      References please otherwise you are a troll!

    4. Re:Patent troll by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If you define a patent troll as someone who holds patents but doesn't actually produce a product with them, then yes, I guess they will.

  4. Thus.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ...making the largest patent troll ever

  5. Sooooo..... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Google is currently looking into building potentially the largest patent library on the planet that they double pinky swear not to abuse? Sounds legit.

  6. Better than Google+ by Anne+Thwacks · · Score: 4, Funny

    Well at least it is a better way to spend their money than Google+.

    --
    Sent from my ASR33 using ASCII
  7. Patent trolls by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Funny

    You know, sometimes an industry spawns really annoying things. The patent industrie's "annoying thing" are the trolls. First, they aquire some patents, then they wait until everybody uses it, and then they go out and sue everybody who seems to have some pennies left. I think this behaviour is really shit. I mean, only systemd is worse. What is worse than some kid developers feeling superior and trying to reinvent the wheel and breaking everything without caring at all? Everybody can program a sketchy new init with the newest features. But making it reliable, that's the hard part. Systemd people don't seem to value reliability at all. Or portability. Ever tried systemd without glibc? Forget it. Ever tried to port systemd to glibc? No, maintaining it is too much effort. Rather spend some time rewriting even more of my /bin directory. I mean I understand it, the internet is full of weird people. But why do distros have to adopt this code that's more a proof of concept than software?

    Many proponents of systemd say that it is neutral, and depending applications can work with other systemd forks too. This might be true, but the design of libsystemd tells me sonething completely different. Its just requiring systemd. You can port it, but it would be horribly ugly. This is perhaps something you can do in your little pet project at home, but not THE NEW DEFAULT INIT FOR NEARLY THE WHOLE LINUX WORLD. Its really a pity to see that young developers like poettering don't even get the basics at operating system API design.

    The systemd people don't even wait like the patent trolls until they show their ugly side. systemd itself is one huge shitpile of an ugly side. How could distros ever install that shit? How much did NSA bribe? Who asks me, as user?

    1. Re:Patent trolls by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Godwin's Law variation... billiant!

  8. ...but does Google... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ...have a patent on online patent marketplaces?

    If not, can I file for it, and then offer to sell my patent there?

  9. don't do it... DON'T DO IT! by antiperimetaparalogo · · Score: 0

    My account is just 2 days old and i already managed to have a "terrible" (/.) "karma" (mostly because yestardays discussion about Microsoft's patents, with me defending Microsoft... and patents!) - hmmm, i must suppress my urge to re-define a "patent troll" as just an entity that buys its research and development from other entity(ies).

    --
    Antisthenes: "Wisdom begins by examining the words/names." - excuse my English, i am (slightly...) better with my Greek!
    1. Re:don't do it... DON'T DO IT! by gstoddart · · Score: 1

      You know nobody gives a crap, right?

      --
      Lost at C:>. Found at C.
    2. Re:don't do it... DON'T DO IT! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Be a man and post at zero.

    3. Re:don't do it... DON'T DO IT! by antiperimetaparalogo · · Score: 0

      You know nobody gives a crap, right?

      You know you just gave a crap, right?

      --
      Antisthenes: "Wisdom begins by examining the words/names." - excuse my English, i am (slightly...) better with my Greek!
    4. Re:don't do it... DON'T DO IT! by antiperimetaparalogo · · Score: 0

      Be a man and post at zero.

      At zero? Son... with my "terrible" (/.) "karma" i automaticaly posted* at minus one, something an anonymous coward like you have not experienced yet!

      * miraculously my (/.) "karma" just raised to just "bad" - glory to Zeus for sending distress to the /. crowd!

      --
      Antisthenes: "Wisdom begins by examining the words/names." - excuse my English, i am (slightly...) better with my Greek!
    5. Re:don't do it... DON'T DO IT! by Archangel+Michael · · Score: 1

      No worries about Getting modded down. I have excellent Karma now, I had excellent Karma in the past, and in between I've had BAD Karma. Easy come easier go. The time it took me to go from Excellent to bad was about two days (experiment), to get back to Excellent took about a month.

      Which only proves one thing, it is easier to lose Good Karma Points than it is to get it back.

      The thing that I change wasn't my view, it was simply how I presented my view.

      --
      Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
    6. Re:don't do it... DON'T DO IT! by antiperimetaparalogo · · Score: 0

      No worries about Getting modded down. I have excellent Karma now, I had excellent Karma in the past, and in between I've had BAD Karma. Easy come easier go. The time it took me to go from Excellent to bad was about two days (experiment), to get back to Excellent took about a month.

      Which only proves one thing, it is easier to lose Good Karma Points than it is to get it back.

      The thing that I change wasn't my view, it was simply how I presented my view.

      Thanks dude, you are quite helpful - i tried to be helpful to someone yesterday but it didn't go well (Score:-1, Troll):

      The /. summary presents Microsoft as a "loser" that "steals" from those making money, and i feel a strange urge to make an analogy with social leeches and hard-working people, but 2 things stop me: 1) it's a bad analogy, because Microsoft contributes something (its patents - so others can use them and make money) 2) my "karma" is already bad, one day after signing up...

      What is the advantage of having good "karma" instead of bad "karma"?

      Well, (at least) one advantage of having good (/.) "karma" is that your comments start with more than "Score:0" (my current comments start with the same score as of any "Anonymous") - at least one DISadvantage of having good (/.) "karma" is that you become a libtard... oh, i fucked up my (/.) "karma" again!

      Was it something i wrote?

      --
      Antisthenes: "Wisdom begins by examining the words/names." - excuse my English, i am (slightly...) better with my Greek!
    7. Re:don't do it... DON'T DO IT! by Archangel+Michael · · Score: 1

      Presenting Microsoft in a positive light. Wasn't probably needed to support your point, and enough kneejerk Slashdotters think MS can do nothing right... and for the most part, they are correct, but broken clocks are right twice a day.

      Or asking a misplaced question (Off Topic)

      or both.

      --
      Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
    8. Re:don't do it... DON'T DO IT! by antiperimetaparalogo · · Score: 0

      You are -at least- helpful... like Gabriel!

      --
      Antisthenes: "Wisdom begins by examining the words/names." - excuse my English, i am (slightly...) better with my Greek!
    9. Re:don't do it... DON'T DO IT! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No worries about Getting modded down. I have excellent Karma now, I had excellent Karma in the past, and in between I've had BAD Karma. Easy come easier go. The time it took me to go from Excellent to bad was about two days (experiment), to get back to Excellent took about a month.

      Which only proves one thing, it is easier to lose Good Karma Points than it is to get it back.

      The thing that I change wasn't my view, it was simply how I presented my view.

      I have been trying to rid myself of karma! Thanks for the tips. Now if only I could get Google to pay me for modding down the swack of microsoft shills out to defame google here on slashdot and even on TV. Oh to hell with it there is most likely more money being spent on patent trolls, shills, artificial corporations masquerading as organizations and payola to politicians by microsoft than the money it collects from everyone who actually produces real devices like Android phones. So microsoft's spending on trolls, shills, shell companies, lawyers and the like is good for the economy!
      QUACK

      Mod me down shills, if you have the karma to get the mod points. I am sure as west Texas starts to lose lawyer dollars because the patent trolls all get their balls cut off some will actually thank Google for doing the job that Microsoft says they are doing but in truth is little more than software patent leaches who happened at one time to actually be able to create an operating system that put the IBM pc out of business and almost bankrupted Apple. For this I thank Microsoft, but they are no longer capable of anything original they are little more than the biggest software patent troll on the planet. Something which is lost on the mindless zombies that dismiss the abusive monopolistic nature of Microsoft or worse are paid to stroke it!

      What is the advantage of having good "karma" instead of bad "karma"?

      If you are a Microsoft shill you can actually hide comments that tell the truth about how Microsoft operates and mod down posts that defend google...got the idea.

  10. Which patent trolls ... by gstoddart · · Score: 1, Troll

    Sorry, but am I supposed to believe this will create anything other than a different kind of patent troll?

    Putting a bunch more patents into Google's hands doesn't prevent them from being patent trolls. This is purely about letting Google buy more patents, not protecting us from patent trolls.

    Greedy bastards.

    --
    Lost at C:>. Found at C.
    1. Re:Which patent trolls ... by willworkforbeer · · Score: 2, Interesting

      The current lot of patent trolls can exist in the shadows since their businesses do not depend upon the goodwill of the public.

      It stands to reason that a company in the public eye, and one that is already painfully aware of and carefully 'managing' public image issues around the world, would be an improvement over the current seemingly anonymous patent trolls. It is not remotely a perfect solution, but it may be a step towards public accountability for abuses of the abject mess that is the current "patent system."

      --
      Pretending this is my office full of bitter coworkers..
    2. Re:Which patent trolls ... by slew · · Score: 1

      Patent trolls are simply motivated by money, and they hardly care about being anonymous (or shamed). I suspect that all this will enable is patent sellers to create a virtually unstoppable army of mini-patent tr0lls that brings the industry to it's knees.

      Mini-patent tr0lls will exactly how real-estate tr0lls currently work. Real-estate tr0lls buy up irregular lots (often thin-strips of property that border streets and various rights-of-way) that appear to have no commercial value, but they use them hold them hostage when a developer want to develop the adjacent land and shake them down for lots of money. Of course you really have to know the terrain and the local real-estate market (not to mention schmooze with local planning officials and city council members) to execute this strategy, but if often doesn't take much money. And why yes I have direct (painful) experience dealing with real-life real-estate tr0lls when my parents were trying to develop a subdivision.

      Tragically, the MLS (multi-list service for property) made this real-estate tr0ll strategy available to less sophisticated investors in a similar way the MLS enabled small-time chinese investors to invest in the real-estate market in the US. Even though all real-estate transactions (principals and the sale price) are public record, there are so many of them, it creates a form of anonymity.

      This new breed of patent-tr0ll instead of having lots of money, will instead use their domain knowledge to looks for specific low-cost patents that they can use to hold the industry hostage. Using this type of patent clearing house will make it easier and lower risk and multiply the number of people trying to do this. Maybe I should think seriously starting a new career as a mini-patent tr0ll... Or maybe I can just patent the idea ;^)

      I don't think a patent clearing house like this is even *remotely* a perfect solution and will likely just trade a few well funded pariah patent-tr0ll companies (e.g., intellectual ventures), for a virtual army of anonymous mini-patent-tr0lls...

      (f.y.i, used "tr0ll" to avoid the lameness filter)

    3. Re:Which patent trolls ... by gstoddart · · Score: 3, Insightful

      This IS NOT a patent clearing house. Not by a long shot.

      This is Google setting up a market place where people can offer to sell Google, and ONLY Google, the opportunity to buy patents. Nobody else will be able to purchase patents with this.

      This is the Google looking to expand its own patent portfolio.

      This has NOTHING to do with a bunch of mini patent trolls -- just one fucking big one.

      --
      Lost at C:>. Found at C.
    4. Re:Which patent trolls ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This IS NOT a patent clearing house. Not by a long shot.

      This is Google setting up a market place where people can offer to sell Google, and ONLY Google, the opportunity to buy patents. Nobody else will be able to purchase patents with this.

      This is the Google looking to expand its own patent portfolio.

      This has NOTHING to do with a bunch of mini patent trolls -- just one fucking big one.

      Two words apply here HORSE and SHIT. What you just posted supposes that those who write software and patent it will have no choice but to sell their warez to Google. Considering what happens to those who go to bed with Microsoft and try to stay in business after drinking the Kool-aid by walking into the offices in Redmond thinking are now a software partner of Microsoft you might be right.

      No one in their right mind offers to sell their so called "intellectual property" to Microsoft anymore because everybody knows that they simply screw you over once they get the gist of your methods and algorithm. Even though Visicalc is not patented it was the foresight of the inventors that made Excel possible, Even though the idea of sql is not patented networking a spread sheet into a data base is under patent because of methods, not radically new technology. The only thing that keeps Microsoft alive is the fact that they have leverage on patents which are extensions of ideas not because they actually create anything new. They have been the biggest meanest bully in high tech history and the way they influence governments is disgusting and as bad as the leverage Halliburton has over the US government! Milo Minderbinder has nothing on these guys.

      At least Google has avoided this to some extent, but perhaps that is why the blatantly obvious Scroogle campaign has taken hold on places like network TV, Slashdot and many other places where the shills are doing the dirty business. It is obvious that the lessons taught by the Watergate fiasco have not been lost on major corporations like Microsoft. Even though they get caught red handed with an obvious fud and mud slinging campaign they still manage to come out smelling like a rose in the outhouse of graft and chicanery that is the world of the politics and business of digital communications.

    5. Re:Which patent trolls ... by gstoddart · · Score: 1

      Two words apply here HORSE and SHIT. What you just posted supposes that those who write software and patent it will have no choice but to sell their warez to Google.

      No, you're a fucking idiot, AC.

      This marketplace is for Google to buy patents, nothing more.

      I never said anybody had no choice but to sell to Google. What I am saying is this marketplace Google is setting up last about a week or two, and the only buyer is Google. There simply is no other buyer in this marketplace. That's it.

      The rest you can fuck off about.

      TFA is quite explicit:

      On its new online portal, patent holders will be able to essentially list the patents they have for sale, and set their own prices. The marketplace will not remain open indefinitely, however. Instead, Google says that it will go live on May 8, 2015, and will be available through May 22, 2015. The decision to keep it open only for a limited time means Google will have to work quickly to determine which patents it wants to buy, which benefits sellers in need of a more immediate decision.

      If Google decides to buy a patent, it says it will work through due diligence with the company, and close the transaction "in short order." In fact, the company says it anticipates that all patent sellers will be paid by late August by way of an ACH bank transfer.

      The portal is only open to U.S. patent submissions, it should be noted.

      Google stresses also that this program is only an experiment -- equating it to a 20 percent project for Google's patent lawyers, which refers to Google's program that once allowed employees to spend some portion of their time with the company working on unofficial projects that may or may not be continued or eventually translated into new lines of business.

      Has it occurred to you that you might be too stupid to understand the article and what I posted?

      Google is not creating a general market for patents. They are making one in which people can offer to sell to Google before selling to "other" patent trolls.

      --
      Lost at C:>. Found at C.
  11. Uniloc 067 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Wouldn't this violate Uniloc's 067 patent?
    http://ptabtrialblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/IPR2013-00391-FWD-20141203.pdf

    Specificially, "wherein the licensing medium comprises a memory installed in a
    cellular telephone,” as recited in claims 21 and 22.

    Maybe it is time for some rioting at the Patent Office / Supreme Court.

  12. Patent Trafficking by bughunter · · Score: 1

    I need more coffee. I read this title as "Google Launches a Marketplace To Buy Parents... " and was in the act of clicking on it before realizing my error.

    --
    I can see the fnords!
  13. They get it thats why I'm trying to acquire shares by dotphysical · · Score: 1

    Google is the most expensive company on the stock market and they have all the money so it would only make since to http://gmedicalcpr.com/dot-phy...

  14. To Protect the Industry From Patent Trolls... by wisnoskij · · Score: 0

    To protect the industry from patent trolls we are buying up all the free patents in the hands of individuals and forming them into a huge archive under the control of a single behemoth.

    --
    Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
    1. Re:To Protect the Industry From Patent Trolls... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That above was a genuine question? Srsly?
      - Whats with the downmods, GoogleBots?

      Last time I buy one of your phones.. & DuckDuckGo! it is.

  15. Sneaky way to avoid infringement claims? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    So I tried reading The Fine Print, and discover, in section [4] of the Patent Offer Submission:

    You agree that You will not use, and waive the right to use, the Submission-related Materials
    as evidence for any purpose in any judicial, administrative, or other proceeding in which
    infringement of any of Your patents is alleged.

    So, Google offers to buy up everybody's patents. Maybe they actually buy a few for show. But now they claim everybody who offered to sell them a patent has waived the right to later sue them for infringement? They specifically state: "the provisions of Paragraph No. 4 above shall survive this agreement through the expiration of any Submitted Patents." I sense a very clever legal hack...

  16. Pretending for a moement we can trust google by Bo'Bob'O · · Score: 1

    So if we pretend that the current state of Google is trustworthy, what happens if there is a management shakeup? Or they need to sell off parts of itself to make some cash? It really seems pretty silly to think that you can trust a corporation for decades when it's trust can literally be bought and sold.

  17. I read TFA twice by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I didn't see any pledges about Google not using them to sue competitors.

    "But they're good guys". Well,

    1) SCO was once run by Silicon Valley techies too. Then the company was sold.

    2) Google, along with Amazon, Microsoft, and Apple, has a disturbing tendency to talk piously about privacy when the topic is government surveillance, and then turn around and use about 100 different channels of sub-transaction-level information to collate data on each and every one of its users, so it can offer premium services to its advertisers. Doubleclick.org is a great example.

  18. Will they buy my patentable idea? by t_ban · · Score: 1
    Suppose I have a couple of patent-worthy ideas, but not the resources to apply for patents. Will Google buy my ideas for (price that they would pay for my patent, if I had one) minus (the cost of patenting my idea)?

    Now that would interest me.

    --
    First they ignore you. Then they laugh at you. Then they fight you. Then you win. -Gandhi