Look wise, say nothing, and grunt. Speech was given to conceal thought - Sir William Osler
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Patents are stifling innovation, says Google
IN A BLINDINGLY STARTLING OUTBREAK of common sense someone from Google has described the existing technology patent system as a nightmare.
Bloomberg reports that Google General Counsel Kent Walker likened patent purchases, and their resulting use, as a battlefield and added that it was hard to find a way through the "mess" of litigation.
"It's hard to find what's the best path - there's so much litigation," said Walker in an interview with Bloomberg. "We're exploring a variety of different things."
Google is currently embroiled in a legal dispute with Oracle about its apparent use of Java in the Android operating system. The argument lately has centred on what seems to be the most important part of the debate, which is how much money Google will be expected to pay Oracle if it is found liable for patent infringement, so it is perhaps because of this that Walker had something to say on the subject.
"The tech industry has a significant problem," he said. "Software patents are kind of gumming up the works of innovation."
This does not mean that Google will steer away from buying patents itself, of course. It was a keen player in the Nortel patents auction and Walker said that it was likely to raise its hand in similar sales.
"We want to make sure Google and the companies Google partners with aren't shut out of the opportunity to bring great new products and features to consumers," he added. "We'll be fine. We have the resources to balance the scales here." µ
Tags: Google
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One more thing, Android is NOT fully open software.
And yes i do use Google products, im writing this through the chrome browser, and i use Google search.
Crikey rarebit, i didnt mean 'any patents' to mean they literally had NONE lol.
I mean in reference to this one matter they are complaining about, and getting many suits thrown at them.
...But, as you mention it, they do have significantly less patents than all the top big boys,i think i read somewhere under 1000, to put it into perspective microsoft has just under 20,000, and ibm is pushing 45,000!!!
Thats why, despite complaining about all this patent trolling, they themselfs actually opened the bidding for the nortel patents, because that is an area they are clearly weak in, they would then used them against other companys and thats makes them no better than any of the others.
For my money, i think they should be let it sort itself out, sue the pants of each other, and when the dust settles then review the patent system, NOT just because Google is trying to gain a market advantage.
"@rarebit you may disagree with my view, but i am certainly not an idiot."
really? and in your first sentence you state that google don't have any patents which is why they're behaving like this? seriously? google has no patents?
then you state that they've "stolen" another company's technology. seriously? you're referring to being sued over their open implementation of the open java VM? by the company that didn't "innovate" or "invent" this technology but just bought up the license and patents from Sun with the aim of "monetising" it?
OK perhaps you're just a shill, a PR hack or a troll rather than an idiot.
My money's still on idiot though.
Yea well explained, im not an expert on all this, and i do believe the whole thing could be done alot better, ie companys that have no interest in developing things, buying up obscure patents about general bits of software then suing small app developers etc. i think the term is called patent trolling.
...we could do with out all that as this truly is stiffling innovation.
But the case with Google is differnet. they are not a small naive company with little resources and no clue. neither are they the only ones, other companys have been sued for the same thing ie apple, Microsoft, etc and they had to pay up, so why should Google be above the law?.
Apparently oracle/sun went to Google very early on and tried to thrash out a very reasonable deal with Google that would have saved most of this nonsense, except Google basically told them to sod off.
They have tried to walk on over alot of companys, simalar to what microsft used to do in the 90's that is why they are being dubbed 'the new microsoft'. that is why there is 2 antitrust suits againsts them around the world.
Unfortunatly this time they are trying to run right over the big boys, the old players in the tech ind. they wont get around it.
Google are not some saviour of the patent system and some new morally high innovator, they are the same controlling , innovation stiffeler like most of the juggernaughts, except they havnt played there cards very well and are now using this excuse and pretending that they are being picked on...yea right!
If they thought there was a problem with the patent system why have they waited till they have a market leading product that conflicts many of them to speak up about it?????
... have a look at this diagram, and then tell me which are the good guys and which are the bad guys who are just shamelessly “stealing” their precious “intellectual property”.
http://www.techdirt.com/blog/wireless/articles/20101007/22591311328/meet-the-patent-thicket-who-s-suing-who-for-smartphone-patents.shtml
And who is paying for all this bullshit? It’s you, the customer.
Wow not one of these paid PR people commenting on the article have substantiated their views with facts about the patent wrangling between Google and Oracle.
Oracle bought up SUN to get control of what is already open sourced software.
Oracle did say from the start they were looking for ways to monetize their purchase and they have by setting their targets on google.
The only argument they have is how Google went about implementing Java (opensourced) for android.
Google has released the changes they have made on their java implementation to the community with full documentation.
Google evil or not, does have a point and a valid one at that regarding the US patent system.
Everything has to be done this way or that and no matter how vague or generic this method is described in the patent,
the patent is approved and enforced without a deep analysis of how general
the patent is and how it can stifle innovation in the future.
Software shouldnt be patented, it can be copyrighted but not patented.
SO there.
@rarebit you may disagree with my view, but i am certainly not an idiot.
In one sense they are right...the patent system is broken...just the other way around.
In a company like Google's world, there should be no such thing as a patents and you should be able to do what you want, with no consequences, with just one caveat....you have to be a market leading multi billion$ company.
Time to put these clowns in the right place.
Because everything Google does IS sinister. There can be no doubt that Google is a quasi-governmental agency that's helping the gov't to surveil everyone everywhere all the time. The power to do evil just by that is immense. Do you really want the gov't to know what you do online and where you are ALL the time? That's Big Brother, you just don't see it because you think Google is "good" because only commercial.
TheInq had already reported on Googles declared intentions with the Nortel Patents they were bidding on, why now try to repaint that as sinister?
"French toast" is right that Google has been taking from others -- especially public domain; their systems run on Linux -- BUT I don't hold with software patents for trivially obvious *ideas* (and I'm only putting it that way to allow that it is in theory possible for someone to come up with a significant new method), anyway, in the area of software "patents", the patent system is definitely broken.
However, anything that cripples Google (or any other large corporation) is to the GOOD, so let's hope that Oracle takes a big bite out of them (even though Oracle is also BAD: let 'em tear each other down, since the stinking gov't isn't doing its job in anti-trust).
Time and again large firms like Google are given the opportunity to take a license or buy an invention from a small entity, but turn it down to only use the invention without permission -they steal it. A small number of those little firms -very small, occasionally find a way to enforce their patents and take the huge multinational to task. The big thieves get what they didn't pay for.
Android could be toast losing out on purchasing the Nortel patents and blatantly stealing from Oracle and who knows who else they stole from. They are going to have to pay up major royalties or stop. The arrogance of google is astonishing and will hurt them in the end as well.
Why should Google be allowed to do any different because someone is a fan on the Android OS? I like it a lot too but they screwed up and now its going to cost them.
you sir, are an idiot.
Well of course they are going to spin that aren't they,thats because they haven't got any!
As far as im concerned they are getting what they deserve, they have stole other company's technology and applied there own 'innovation' gloss with out paying any dues for all the R&D that went into it.
They have sat on the sidelines and let there partners like HTC take the flak without offering any protection for there own product, whilst sitting back and milking the profits from there so called 'free' software.
...not quite so 'free' after all is it???