
Google Fi Patent - empressplay
http://www.google.com/patents/US20120036035
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jcoffland
It's painful reading these things. Companies like Google file thousands of
patents gobbling up all kinds of fairly obvious ideas and by doing so create a
minefield of inovation stifiling lawyer fodder. Many people forget that the
original intent of the patent system was to give inovators a leg up not to
create a market for buying and selling IP.

~~~
revelation
I thought the actual _actual_ intent was to make sure innovations are
accessible to the public (and competitors once protection expires), helping
society as a whole.

Yet, it's hard to find any instance where someone would have used a software
patent for its supposed purpose: to replicate the innovation. They're utterly
useless.

~~~
formulaT
I don't support the existence of software patents at all. That said, I also
don't think the benefits of patents should be interpreted so narrowly, or that
we should judge patents by the single criterion of their "actual" intent
instead of these other benefits.

The other benefit is that it enables companies to do innovation where they
would not have been able to keep the idea secret in the first place. E.g. a
pharmaceutical drug whose chemical composition would be trivial to reverse
engineer. In that case, the patent does not serve the purpose of making the
knowledge public in exchange for a monopoly. What it does do, though, is
incentivize innovation be rewarding the inventor with the "rights" to that
idea.

The real problem with patents is when patents are of trivial things that
anyone could have thought of without much effort. That is why I don't support
any software patents, because it's so much easier to patent trivial things in
the software world than the physical world.

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jcoffland
The argument for actual intent is based on how it was sold to voters when the
laws were first enacted. I think it's perfectly legit to judge patents on
these terms.

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rayiner
Patents are in the Constitution, so they weren't "sold to voters" per se. In
any case,like a lot of old legal things, they were conceived at a time when we
didn't understand economics. It's perfectly legitimate to reinterpret old
legal concepts in light of advances in economic theory.

Tort law, for example, predates the U.S., but today we have an economic
understanding of what purpose it serves (addressing the negative externalities
of risk-creating activities). It's perfectly legitimate to look at those
modern economic models to decide how we interpret (and evolve) these existing
laws. With regards to patents, we can understand them as a solution to free-
rider problems. Regardless of what intuitive understandings motivated them in
the first place, the laws should be interpreted with the economic model in
mind today.

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julianpye
The reality is that any public company that does not file a patent related to
a major service launch is foolish. The most important purpose is
crosslicensing as well as using it as a licensing hook for compliance, i.e.
ensuring compatibility. Aggressive litigation is usually a question of
corporate culture, but patents need to be defended to remain valuable for
licensing agreements.

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monochromatic
This is actually just the pre-grant publication of the application. The actual
issued patent is available here:
[http://www.google.com/patents/US8238965](http://www.google.com/patents/US8238965)

(Yes, it's pretty similar. But no reason to be looking at the pre-grant
version.)

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empressplay
It's an interesting patent. I'm not sure how defendable it is though, since
there seems to be prior art in existing network switching and routing
mechanisms, but it might keep competition away initially, and allow Google to
get a strong foothold in the market (unless Google states that it's a purely
defensive patent.)

~~~
xxgreg
The patent appears to be about selecting a network carrier using a bidding
process. The device can choose a network based on price and quality of
service. What prior art is there for this?

~~~
IBM
Apple has one about selecting a network carrier using a bidding process.

[http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-
Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=H...](http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-
Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-
adv.htm&r=5&f=G&l=50&d=PTXT&p=1&p=1&S1=%2820110208.PD.+AND+apple.ASNM.%29&OS=isd/2/8/2011+and+an/apple&RS=%28ISD/20110208+AND+AN/apple%29)

~~~
Flimm
Why the downvotes?

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psykovsky
I think it's because it had the word Apple when responding to a post about
Google.

~~~
hemonthe
That's a prior patent not prior art i.e. Apple hasn't used it in a product
yet. Moreover Apple having a patent suggests Google applied for a patent for
their own implementation to avoid getting sued by Apple. Apple has a history
of litigation to stifle competition.

~~~
IBM
It appears patents can serve as prior art.

[http://www.ericksonlawgroup.com/law/patents/patentfaq/what-i...](http://www.ericksonlawgroup.com/law/patents/patentfaq/what-
is-prior-art/)

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dataker
Google is gradually becoming the IBM of the 2010s

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cpfohl
Doesn't Republic Wireless have prior art here?

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ummonkwatz
Google filed a patent! LET'S RAGEPOST ABOUT PATENTS!

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bluecalm
>>A method of initiating...

Can you really patent an idea?

