Inventor Says Google Is Patenting His Public Domain Work (arstechnica.com)

Rob Riggs writes: Jarek Duda, the inventor of a compression technique called asymmetric numeral systems (ANS), dedicated the invention to the public domain. Since 2014, Facebook, Apple, and Google have all created software based on his breakthrough. Google is now trying to patent a video encoding scheme using the compression technique. The inventor is fighting Google in the European courts and has won a preliminary ruling. The fight's not over and Google is also seeking a patent with the USPTO. A Google spokesperson says Duda came up with a theoretical concept that isn't directly patentable, "while Google's lawyers are seeking to patent a specific application of that theory that reflects additional work by Google's engineers," reports Ars Technica. "But Duda says he suggested the exact technique Google is trying to patent in a 2014 email exchange with Google engineers."

Comments

Re:It's called Prior Art

[ShanghaiBill]

All inventions are built on the complex work of others. But you cannot preclude someone from inventing new things using your public domain technology.

Did you RTFS? He is claiming that Google's extensions are also documented prior art.

The patent system is broken

[viperidaenz]

Patent examiners only look at prior patents for prior art. They don't have the time to look else where.
If you share an invention that isn't patented, someone will find it and apply for a patent. It it really is novel and nothing like it has been patented before it will be granted. They will then use it to sue everyone you shared the information with. Starting with the little guys who can't afford a decent lawyer.

It's extremely time consuming and expensive to invalidate a patent.