I don't know details about the patent portfolio upon which this bid was made so as to comment upon it specifically, but I can make a couple of observations about Google's strategic approach to patents:
1. Google is definitely not "anti-patent," either philosophically or otherwise. At the heart of its business is the PageRank patent, which is assigned to Stanford with exclusive license to Google. Even within the last month, Google got a patent for its "Systems and methods for enticing users to access a web site," i.e., its "Google Doodle" (see http://ipwatchdog.com/2011/03/25/google-patents-the-google-d... for an overview on this). And, of course, the blog post involved here very carefully delineates and distinguishes patents that foster innovation (presumably good) and others that are primarily gained to foment litigation, in particular "low-quality software patents."
2. Of course, Google is involved in a current, major fight involving Oracle's assertion of both copyright and patent Java-related claims against its Android technology. Google is a powerful adversary to take on, and it is blasting away quite skillfully seeking to invalidate the Oracle patents in that suit on Bilski grounds that they constitute "abstract ideas" and not bona fide patentable subject matter (see http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1899156 for a summary of relevant issues in that case). But no powerful litigant ever bets solely on how a court might interpret some nebulous body of law such as what constitutes patentable subject matter. As matters now stand, should Google lose on that issue, it has very little in the way of defense against such claims. Perhaps the patents upon which it is bidding will give it a practical way to attack Oracle so as to bolster its defense but, again, I don't know about the immediate portfolio or whether it even relates to the Java-related claims. That said, however, I am certain that the Oracle litigation, at a minimum, has spurred Google to consider this issue very carefully and to determine that it needs these tools very badly so as not to be exposed in the future to patent broadsides to which it has no answer other than to point out how weak the relevant patents are - which may be no answer at all in the real world of patent litigation. Hence, this patent portfolio bid has either an immediate aim in mind (Oracle litigation) or a long-term aim with the same strategic view in mind (cover yourself against flim-flam patent claims that might hinder Google's future ability to innovate).
3. The FTC recently issued a comprehensive report on the need for patent reform, and one of its main points concerned so-called "non-practicing entities" or what it has chosen to call "patent-assertion entites" (PAEs) or what is commonly known as "trolls" (see HN discussion here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2303980). These are patent holders who do not use their patents to produce things but rather use them solely for licensing and the concomitant litigation that inevitably follows against those who decline the licensing "offer." In reality, the PAE idea is much more complex than merely that of a shakedown racket. All sorts of large tech companies routinely gather up all sorts of patents for which they have no plans to innovate but which are vital to their business strategies, either to be used to attack rivals or to defend against them and whether for good or for bad motives. In making this bid, Google is basically acknowledging that it needs to arm itself in this department. This is neither inherently good or bad and could be used strictly for protecting Google's ability to innovate or it could be abused down the road, all depending on future choices to be made by the company's management. It is certainly a double-edged issue.
Groklaw recently ran a piece answering the question "what's blocking innovation in America" and answered it with "IP laws" - this in turn led to some sparks flying here at HN as some, like me, defended IP in general while saying that it needs to be reformed and (many) others taking the more radical view that IP laws generally are to be castigated (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2210469). In my view, the case for IP laws generally is made by companies such as Google, which uses such laws effectively and powerfully but which, at least to date, has not abused them. In this sense, Google has been an exemplary company on this issue. What the future may bring on this front, of course, remains to be seen.
Do you have any more evidence for Google being pro-patent than them applying for patents?
They've just bid a billion dollars for a patent portfolio, which they claim is a necessary defensive move. If you accept that, then applying for patents is a valid defensive strategy too.
applying for patents is a valid defensive strategy too
Yes, if you define "defensive" to mean that they want to guard their proprietary forms of innovation against others who might seek to use them during the period of the temporary monopoly they hold on them. But not defensive in the sense of having been obtained in anticipation primarily of being used in litigation defense when others sue Google (which, I think, is how "defensive" is normally used on this topic).
I am no special authority on Google's thinking in this area. Its public actions and comments, though, suggest that it is a company that dislikes and even despises low-quality patents used primarily to foment litigation while supporting the types of patents (like PageRank) that reward innovation. That is pretty much how I read this piece. By the way, I also have an antipathy to flaky patents and strongly believe that the patent system needs reform, but I am not opposed to IP generally, nor to patents (when done properly) in particular.
Does Google assert their patents positively, though? I'm not aware of the PageRank patent being much used, despite the fact that there's a whole cottage industry of "PageRank for X" search tools, who not only seem to infringe on the patent, but even advertise the fact that they use a PageRank-derived algorithm (see, e.g., eigenfactor.org).
I think your point is a good one but I am confident that, if Microsoft started using PageRank for Bing, a Google lawsuit (or at least a Stanford lawsuit for the benefit of Google) would be both swift and formidable.
PageRank-style algorithms are so fundamental to current search tech that I would be shocked if Microsoft wasn't using something along these lines on Bing.
Do you think the Nortel patents are flaky? I'm no expert but they seem fairly legit as far as patents go (better than the Google Doodle one for starters), but again I'm not expecting them to be used offensively to extract rents or stifle competitors who haven't initiated patent lawsuits.
No, not at all, and I did not mean to imply this about the Nortel patents in my comment. Indeed, a company like Nortel very likely would have a large grouping of high-quality patents that truly tie to innovative steps it has taken over the years. Google's aim, I assume, is to get these (and whatever happens to come with them) to help fight off flaky patent challenges in the future.
Why does it matter? Google is an entity. Even if they only mean to use patents defensively today that doesn't say anything about what they will do 5 years from now.
They are actively using that patent. They're against 'low quality' patents owned by companies that don't use them to create anything. If they're lobbying for patent reform then isn't that a good indication of where they stand on the issue?
They're against 'low quality' patents when it suits them, which is quite often.
On the other hand, whilst they haven't [yet] tried to enforce it, the recently-awarded "Google Doodles" patent is the definitive example of a junk patent - ludicrously vague, of no value whatsoever in advancing human enterprise and preceded by prior art that covered broad swathes of the contemporary internet before Google existed, including some companies they really would have been paying lots of attention to[1]. Really, the patent lawyer that persuaded them to apply for that deserves a slap.
Whilst I'm sure Nortel actually have done a lot of worthwhile research in the process of building up their portfolio, Google is also in the process of giving people 900 million more reasons more to apply for patents for anything and everything.
This is a big boy move: like the spectrum auction, it's win-win: if they win, they have a defensive portfolio; if they lose, they force higher bids from others, meaning that others are going to have to outlay a lot more cash just to get into a position where they can sue Google from, so that once they do, they are doing so from a weaker position. Being able to spend billions on win-win moves that invariably weaken the field without any of those billions going towards improving client/consumer experience? Maybe Microsoft's got a valid point about abuses of dominant positions by Google.
> Maybe Microsoft's got a valid point about abuses of dominant positions by Google.
I agree with you that they've made some clever moves, but Google owns no spectrum (and this was before Android, right?) and almost no patents. It's hard to argue that they are abusing their dominant position in those fields - people are scared of what they could do, but "potential monopolist" is not a strong basis for an antitrust case.
Making sure android can offer all the expected features of a modern phone os without being sued to death isn't improving the consumer experience ? And the whole monopoly thing you said is ludicrous, having a business that is making a whole lot of cash is in no way the same thing as abusing a dominant position. I honestly can't even understand how you could confuse the two.
That's like saying the red cross is abusing its dominant position since it earns so much donations that it can afford to send people pretty much everywhere while other orgs can't.
(I am in no way implying a relation between google and the red cross, just the first exemple to pop in my mind)
Google is either going to spend lots of money on buying patents, or lots of money on lobbying and litigation. That's only win-win for lawyers. Everyone else loses out, since as you point out it diverts funds away from productive use (though how that's an abuse of Google's position escapes me).
What will truly be interesting: How will Google wield its patent cache when, inevitably, waters get rougher in the future and some upstart punches them in the nose? If they shake it off and say, "let's dance," rather than calling their patent lawyers, then they will have lived up to the credo they're espousing here.
> if they lose, they force higher bids from others, meaning that others are going to have to outlay a lot more cash just to get into a position where they can sue Google from, so that once they do, they are doing so from a weaker position
On the other hand, it could also mean that the eventual winner has more incentive to seek higher licensing fees, and to sue those who won't buy licenses, in order to make up for the higher amount they paid to get the patents.
I don't get that logic. They aren't the only ones with billions to spare, Microsoft for example has more.
You are suggesting that they mustn't find a way to protect their interests from patent suits because otherwise they are abusing their position?! that doesn't make sense.
There would be some irony in that since it would allow Oracle to use them to defend against any counter strike Google makes in the Java / Android patent suit.
Note that such "free licensing" for patents generally includes the stipulation that you waive your license if you engage in any patent suit against the patent-holding company - for example, the Red Hat promise includes the words:
"Our Promise does not extend to any party who institutes patent litigation against Red Hat..."
The whole point is to free up your patent collection so anyone can use it, without devaluing it as ammunition to defend yourself from other patent claims.
Would you give years of hard works freely to someone who just waits to gain benefits from your hard works? Majority of the answers will be NO. Therefore, a patent system is still needed in order to protect inventor's hard works from being stolen by big sharks.
However, there are problems with the current patent system. Why Innovation is stifled. Why trolls and litigation are likes wildfires. They all come down to one root cause. The current patent system treats all patents the same and does not factor in that the speed of the innovation in each industry is different.
If we just look at the innovation speed of the software industry and the 20 years patent length, the problems mentioned earlier become obvious. Say if the software patent only last 5 or less than 10 years, the problems become mitigated. Trolls will need to justify the litigation costs vs revenue generated in less years. Many paper patents will become no value at all.
Also, because the patent length is shorten to less than 10 year, it’ll force inventor to wait until implementation or commercialization of the patent is mature before filing the patent application. Otherwise, by the time implementation or commercialization is ready, the patent will most likely due soon.
It would be great if they could create a patent pool where every company could join (e.g. paying a small yearly fee), so whenever somebody sues you, you would have the right to use all the patents in that patent pool to sue the other company back.
The problem is that each patent can only do a limited amount of damage to each company its used against, so members with larger portfolios would be stretching their defenses thin to cover the weaker companies.
Still, I might like to see a strictly defensive patent pool between equally powerful players.
Just to state the obvious, "us, our partners and the open source community" excludes rivals and suggests something a little stronger than a defensive portfolio.
The problem with making this sound like it's purely a defensive move is that if tomorrow the government decides they agree and would like to massively reform the software patent process would Google really be able to support that.
They just spent 1 billion acquiring patents that they would then turn around and support reform that invalidates most of them. I call BS on that!
No company is going to throw away a billion dollars for the greater good!
Or perhaps they realise, even with a new patent arsenal, it's still overall poor for their business? They probably also realise that any patent reform isn't going to happen very quickly, and this patent acquisition isn't going to be "thrown away".
In short term yes, but if we got rid of patents then Google wouldn't have to spend billion dollars on patents each year. I don't think Google is so short-sighted.
Large patent portfolios owned by big companies represent the most danger for small companies trying to make something new. Big companies can afford to fight each other with armies of lawyers and settle on large piles of cash. However, if your startup gets a threatening letter from Google telling you that you are infringing on their patent, you are done. Google is a public company, so they have an obligation to their shareholders to turn their investments into profits. Hence, I don't see any reason, why Google's lawyers won't google through their newly acquired patent database to see how they can extort some juice settlements or shut down some small players.
Google is becoming more hypocritical by the day. First the Verizon deal. Next it was closing Android, now it is bidding on Nortel's patents as a protection power-play (and I'm sure there are countless others, but those are the first I'm reminded of). This is a "sorry we're not sorry" blog post...I never understand this. Stop pretending to be a small company in big company's clothes: own up to being a part of the system you swore not to be a part of, and move on. Search works for me, so I'm still happy.
Google can be ideologically pure about patents being evil and subsequently get sued to oblivion, or they can acknowledged the current reality and fight it while staying safe themselves. I'd know one I would pick.
For example, I disagree with marijuana laws, but I am not about to light up in front of a cop.
And who's there to stop Google from abusing the patent pool in 4 years from now?
Yes, they have been pretty considerate business up to now. But future is not merely a direct projection of past.
A portfolio of patents is as much an obligation as an asset. You cannot arbitrarily enforce patents only against certain competitors, lest you risk the patent in question being shot down in arbitration or court case.
A portfolio of patents becomes a liability sooner or later, no matter who owns it.
The only one who can stop that is you -- by voting, lobbying or donating money to the EFF or similar organizations that are fighting against software patents.
If enough people did this, we wouldn't have this conversation -- but the truth is, most people accepted the status-quo and/or have other priorities, so after a little bit of hand-waving, life goes back to normal and it's business as usual.
And companies have the obligation to defend themselves -- they can't afford to just bitch-and-moan about this issue. And even companies acting in good-faith (if such a thing exists for companies) -- will choose the path of least resistance (i.e. building a patents portfolio). Otherwise, to make a (bad) analogy, it would be like going to war with "make love" signs.
And who's there to stop whoever buy these patents from abusing the patent pool in 4 years from now? In that situation, I would much rather have google own them on the risk that they might do something evil with it (but probably not if we believe their history), than any of the other companies who already proved they would.
The first step to enlightenment is recognizing instances where you might be wrong ;-)
I think we are too little and insignificant to hypothesize about the effects of net-neutrality (or the lack of it), and what will happen with the Internet ecosystem going forward; but personally I think net-neutrality is bad news for consumers, which would be ironic given how it was pushed forward. If anything, I blame Google for sticking their nose into this business, but I don't blame them.
About "closing Android" -- their behavior has been consistent. The very first version of Android has been released in binary-form only. Android was never more open than it currently is, and as far as openness goes, it's not a black&white issue.
Bidding on Nortel's patents makes sense, and I'm actually glad they did it, as companies like Oracle, Microsoft and Apple have the power to kill Android by means of their fat patents portfolio. And personally I care much, much more about a healthy smartphones ecosystem that has plenty of competition, rather than about ideological issues that may or may not have value.
No, they aren't a small company anymore. Small companies in the same situation either sell-out or die.
Disgusting that a post questioning Google gets voted down like this. Also you forgot where they made a big stink about China, claimed they were pulling out and.... didn't.
It's the never ending battle between ideology vs pragmatism. In a perfect world, I'm sure they'd love to stick to their original creed of "Don't be evil", but pragmatism dictates that occasionally they have to bend their own rules from time to time to make sure food gets on the table for their thousands of employees. I'm not saying you're right or wrong, but I get the sense that most HNers fall into the "pragmatism" camp.
In this particular case, my bat-sensor isn't really detecting anything malevolent afoot. They and their partners have been getting hammered on all sides by patent lawsuits and Google has more than enough cash to come out swinging, and this is a major show of muscle to let people know they're not going to get pushed around like some two bit small company.
I'm pragmatic as well. What I find frustrating about this blatant Google fanboy-ism is that it is hypocritical on its face: any normal company thing they do gets trumpeted as "don't do evil! Weeeeee!" and every evil thing is defended with pragmatism.
They're just a big public tech company. They're no more good/evil than Apple, Microsoft or anyone else and it's really frustrating watching otherwise intelligent adults behaving as though they were somehow different.
1. Google is definitely not "anti-patent," either philosophically or otherwise. At the heart of its business is the PageRank patent, which is assigned to Stanford with exclusive license to Google. Even within the last month, Google got a patent for its "Systems and methods for enticing users to access a web site," i.e., its "Google Doodle" (see http://ipwatchdog.com/2011/03/25/google-patents-the-google-d... for an overview on this). And, of course, the blog post involved here very carefully delineates and distinguishes patents that foster innovation (presumably good) and others that are primarily gained to foment litigation, in particular "low-quality software patents."
2. Of course, Google is involved in a current, major fight involving Oracle's assertion of both copyright and patent Java-related claims against its Android technology. Google is a powerful adversary to take on, and it is blasting away quite skillfully seeking to invalidate the Oracle patents in that suit on Bilski grounds that they constitute "abstract ideas" and not bona fide patentable subject matter (see http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1899156 for a summary of relevant issues in that case). But no powerful litigant ever bets solely on how a court might interpret some nebulous body of law such as what constitutes patentable subject matter. As matters now stand, should Google lose on that issue, it has very little in the way of defense against such claims. Perhaps the patents upon which it is bidding will give it a practical way to attack Oracle so as to bolster its defense but, again, I don't know about the immediate portfolio or whether it even relates to the Java-related claims. That said, however, I am certain that the Oracle litigation, at a minimum, has spurred Google to consider this issue very carefully and to determine that it needs these tools very badly so as not to be exposed in the future to patent broadsides to which it has no answer other than to point out how weak the relevant patents are - which may be no answer at all in the real world of patent litigation. Hence, this patent portfolio bid has either an immediate aim in mind (Oracle litigation) or a long-term aim with the same strategic view in mind (cover yourself against flim-flam patent claims that might hinder Google's future ability to innovate).
3. The FTC recently issued a comprehensive report on the need for patent reform, and one of its main points concerned so-called "non-practicing entities" or what it has chosen to call "patent-assertion entites" (PAEs) or what is commonly known as "trolls" (see HN discussion here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2303980). These are patent holders who do not use their patents to produce things but rather use them solely for licensing and the concomitant litigation that inevitably follows against those who decline the licensing "offer." In reality, the PAE idea is much more complex than merely that of a shakedown racket. All sorts of large tech companies routinely gather up all sorts of patents for which they have no plans to innovate but which are vital to their business strategies, either to be used to attack rivals or to defend against them and whether for good or for bad motives. In making this bid, Google is basically acknowledging that it needs to arm itself in this department. This is neither inherently good or bad and could be used strictly for protecting Google's ability to innovate or it could be abused down the road, all depending on future choices to be made by the company's management. It is certainly a double-edged issue.
Groklaw recently ran a piece answering the question "what's blocking innovation in America" and answered it with "IP laws" - this in turn led to some sparks flying here at HN as some, like me, defended IP in general while saying that it needs to be reformed and (many) others taking the more radical view that IP laws generally are to be castigated (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2210469). In my view, the case for IP laws generally is made by companies such as Google, which uses such laws effectively and powerfully but which, at least to date, has not abused them. In this sense, Google has been an exemplary company on this issue. What the future may bring on this front, of course, remains to be seen.