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Google Accused of Trying To Patent Public Domain Technology (bleepingcomputer.com)
An anonymous reader shares a report: A Polish academic is accusing Google of trying to patent technology he invented and that he purposely released into the public domain so companies like Google couldn't trap it inside restrictive licenses. The technology's name is Asymmetric Numeral Systems (ANS), a family of entropy coding methods that Polish assistant professor Jarosaw (Jarek) Duda developed in the early 2000s, and which is now hot tech at companies like Apple, Google, and Facebook, mostly because it can improve data compression from 3 to 30 times. Duda says that Google is now trying to register a patent that includes most of the ANS basic principles. Ironically, most of the technology described in the patent, Duda said he explained to Google engineers in a Google Groups discussion from 2014. The researcher already filed a complaint, to which WIPO ISA responded by calling out Google for not coming up with "an inventive contribution over the prior art, because it is no more than a straightforward application of known coding algorithms." A Google spokesperson refused to comment, and the mystery remains surrounding Google's decision to patent something that's in the public domain since 2014.
That's exactly what patents are for: To ensure huge corporations like Google keep tight hold on any new (or not so new) technologies.
It almost makes no difference whether Prof Duda can prove he invented this, if Google have a mind to they have the money to keep any case he might bring in court for as long as they like.br. The system is set up that way.
Patent trolls must die!!
The dumb shits in the patent office will sleepwalk through the rubber stamping process as usual.
I'm pretty sure that's Google's motto.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Big companies are not an individual who decides to file ANS patents.
Big companies provide incentives for their employees to file patents and employees submit patent proposals to some review committee and the committee decides which ones to apply for, then a lawyer works with the employee to write the application.
This whole process can happen without anyone involved knowing what the patent status of ANS is. In particular, big companies ask their employees not to search patents, because that creates triple damages risk where a plaintiff can show you 'knew' you were infringing because for example you downloaded the patent onto your computer and that was shown in discovery.
The underlying reason for this behavior is the triple damages provisions for willful infringement.
I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
And I don't mean countersuits in response to another company or individual suing them for patent infringement. I mean, has Google ever found someone violating one of their patents, and been the first to file an infringement lawsuit?
There's plenty not to like and to worry about with Google. But by my recollection, acting like a patent troll isn't one of them. If Google is trying to get a patent for an already-existing invention, then it's far more likely they applied for it just in case the USPTO was stupid enough to grant it. That way they would have the patent instead of some patent troll who could then sue Google for it. $10,000 for a patent application is cheap insurance against a patent lawsuit which could cost $millions to defend against.
Google is now evil.
At the USPTO, there are:
1) incentives to grant patents regardless of merit as the fees associated determine their operating budget
2) incentives to ignore prior art for as long as possible (ongoing maintenance fees)
3) a complete lack of oversight and virtually no repercussions for improperly granting patents
Fix those problems and you probably fix the existing problems at large companies as well...
Additionally the person in question is from Poland. In Europe, for the most part, software and algorithms are not patentable, so this would have required an academic to register for a US patent. Registering an international patent is expensive and should not be the first motivation for an academic.
The biggest issue here, IMO, is allowing software patents in the first place and while permitted being for such a long period. A software patent should be good for 5 years at the maximum, since I doubt most software patents took years, cost millions to come up with and implement.
Wikipedia on European software patents: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
The engineer may no longer work for Google, but it is Google that is paying and pushing forward said patent. This shows Google patent team acting out with scum-like behaviour.
If higher levels of management are aware of what is going on and they choose not to drop this from patent submission, then they too are likely showing scum-like behaviour
Jumpstart the tartan drive.