The money is going to the guy who patented a crucial part of Google's AdWords algorithm which neither they nor Bing can apparently design around.
The guy got crushed in the market, being just a little fish, he was gobbled right up. But he bought back his patent, and took the fight to Google and Bing and won.
You can argue the percentage calculation is a too rich by an order of magnitude or two (and I think it is), but you can't argue whether the patent is valid or whether they infringe. A judge and jury said it is, and they did, and that will stand until a higher court says otherwise.
Did Google invent it first? Nope. Did Google find any prior art? Nope. Was the patent obvious? Nope.
I don't have a problem with large companies paying large sums to inventors who actually produce a product, patent their invention, but get crushed by the market a few years later.
This is actually kinda how it's supposed to work. If this is an example of what is "wrong" then there there must be no patent that is "right".
The money is going to the guy who patented a crucial part of Google's AdWords algorithm which neither they nor Bing can apparently design around.
Was the patent obvious? Nope.
These comments seem to be at odds with on another. If the patent covers an algorithm that is a natural solution to the problem multiple companies are trying to solve, doesn't that mean the solution is 'obvious'?
Is that how we want software development to work? I solve a technical problem in an application, but because someone I've never heard of on the other side of the country happened to patent that solution first, I can be sued for money? Sure, it benefits the people who file patents, but I don't think patents should exist solely because they can profit a revenue stream to the people who file them.
I think 'natural solution' is a play on words. My understanding is that all the search engines (including Google) spent many years figuring this out, failing many times along the way. PG's patent on Bayesian anti-spam is another example of something which seems obvious in retrospect, and now everyone does it.
'Natural' to me means a product or feature which just fits perfectly within the system. A natural solution is the most valuable and often hardest to come by. They also tend to seem incredibly obvious in retrospect, and yet examining history will demonstrate that others suffered for years for lack of that exact functionality.
For example, the intermittent wiper, or the teleprompter, or maybe even the paper clip. It's the ideas that seem the most obvious in retrospect which need the strongest patent protection. But only if you can show it's novel.
One way the patent office will let you demonstrate something is 'non-obvious' is if you can show something is both novel and actually solves a large existing problem in the market. The novel, simple, elegant solution to a large problem is by definition non-obvious, or else someone else would already be doing it.
Let's remember that when the guy was "gobbled right up", Google was a dozen people with one server in a garage.
The fact that multiple entities came up with this idea, without communication of the idea between them, means that it was more a function of the environment the idea was conceived in than the person who did the conceiving.
Agree with everything you've said, and I still think Google has to pay for infringing.
Patents are NOT just to prevent copying. Patents are not supposed to be worthless against larger companies who can just replicate your work without your help.
If you could just re-engineer any patented invention, patents would be worthless. Companies would be incentivized to bury their heads in the sand so they could be sure they were not 'inspired' by anything out there that might have been patented. The only way to prevent this is to say, we don't care if you "knew" about the patent you still can be found infringing.
The thing I hope will be reversed on appeal is willfulness. It seems to me this was not willful. Or perhaps the definition of 'willful' should be tightened to mean reverse-engineered or copied from a practicing entity. That's one way to get the damage award to be more reasonable.
Patents are not supposed to be worthless against larger companies who can just replicate your work without your help.
If people can replicate your work without having to look at any specific about your work, why should your work be patentable?
What about if you reverse the actors in your example? Should large companies with vast warchests filled with patents be allowed to strong arm smaller competitors who likely don't have nearly as many patents with which to defend themselves?
Patents aren't about protecting an idea because the person who came up with it was uniquely qualified to create that particular thing. Any number of people could create the same thing independently. But only one person can be the first person to create a thing.
Patents reward those who come first, those who push a boundary, who create something novel. Novel doesn't say anything about how many hours it took to come up with the idea.
Remember, this patent is from 1996, and soon to be expired. 16 years later the algorithm powering AdWords can't live without it. I'd say this patent was 'ahead of the curve' when it was written.
Injunctions are becoming more rare, and if the penalty is apportioned correctly it would always make very little sense for a much larger company to sue a smaller one, because even a win would cost more than it was worth.
Even with recent changes, the law could due with some strengthening to protect against harassment suits. From large companies against small, and from trolls against anyone. Reasonable costs for the defendant could be carried by the plaintiff in some cases.
> Companies would be incentivized to bury their heads in the sand so they could be sure they were not 'inspired' by anything out there that might have been patented.
Already the case, because willful infringement penalties are much worse than accidental infringement. Any lawyer will tell you that, as an engineer, you should never read patents:
The guy got crushed in the market, being just a little fish, he was gobbled right up. But he bought back his patent, and took the fight to Google and Bing and won.
You can argue the percentage calculation is a too rich by an order of magnitude or two (and I think it is), but you can't argue whether the patent is valid or whether they infringe. A judge and jury said it is, and they did, and that will stand until a higher court says otherwise.
Did Google invent it first? Nope. Did Google find any prior art? Nope. Was the patent obvious? Nope.
I don't have a problem with large companies paying large sums to inventors who actually produce a product, patent their invention, but get crushed by the market a few years later.
This is actually kinda how it's supposed to work. If this is an example of what is "wrong" then there there must be no patent that is "right".