
Google Patent Purchase Promotion - mckoss
http://www.google.com/patents/licensing/#tab=pp
======
jawns
So the question is: Why would you want to sell your patent to Google, rather
than some other buyer?

In this promotion, Google's answer to that question is that at the very least,
you can be sure you're not selling to a patent troll. They may end up using
your patent, or they may not, but they are promising that they will not use
the slimy tactics associated with patent trolls.

But the thing about patent trolls is that they're looking for a very specific
type of patent: an overly broad one that probably should not have been issued
in the first place.

If you don't have that kind of patent, but you do have a patent that is
clearly valuable otherwise, then the pool of potential buyers probably won't
include patent trolls, so the purported benefit of selling to Google (avoiding
selling to patent trolls) is moot.

In which case, you might end up getting a good price from Google (the price
you yourself set), or you might end up getting a better price from some other
buyer.

But the nice thing about this promotion is that, assuming you're confident
there are other buyers out there, you can set your price a little bit higher
than you think it's worth and see if Google is willing to bite. If not, go
sell it elsewhere.

~~~
dragonwriter
> So the question is: Why would you want to sell your patent to Google, rather
> than some other buyer?

There are two basic _general_ reasons that a person who would otherwise be
willing to sell to an NPE might be interested in selling to Google instead:

1\. Google will pay more, and/or

2\. Google provides a quicker, easier process for evaluation and decision that
means you close the deal and get actual certainty (and the money itself) more
quickly and with less of your own time and energy devoted to the process.

Google's effort to established a streamlined process with a "identify your
patent and price at which you are committed to sell" up front step, and a well
defined set of steps with fairly short time windows leading to a final
decision, attempts to address both of those. (Provide a smooth decision
process on purchase at the seller's desired price.)

> In this promotion, Google's answer to that question is that at the very
> least, you can be sure you're not selling to a patent troll.

No, you've got that wrong: that's not the benefit to the _seller_. That's one
of the benefits to _Google_ (and, presuming Google doesn't use patents like a
troll, potentially everyone else in the tech industry and everyone indirectly
harmed by the drag patent trolls put on the technology market.)

~~~
tombrossman
> _"...and, presuming Google doesn't use patents like a troll..."_

Saw this this morning discussing how Google bought Motorola and is now
demanding more royalties for "standard-essential patents", after selling off
Motorola (and keeping their patents to use in lawsuits like this):
[https://twitter.com/FioraAeterna/status/592775596712849408](https://twitter.com/FioraAeterna/status/592775596712849408)

I don't follow this super closely and so can't say if the claim is 100% true,
but it sure was interesting to read about.

~~~
sukilot
Reading the geekwite, it is unclear if the lawsuit is about royalties for pre-
Google-ownership of patents, or after, or both.

~~~
minot
Also, it was Microsoft that targeted Android with patents on things such as
FAT32. If you sue me, all gentlemanly agreements are off the table.

Essential patent is a loaded term. I argue all non-trivial patents are
essential. If a software patent isn't standard-essential (I'd argue standard
is yet another loaded term because FAT32 is a de facto standard for
interoperability) it should not be a patent at all. I think you'll agree.

~~~
throwawaykf05
But "taking gentlemanly agreements off the table" is not all they did. For all
the noise Google made about abuse of patents in the smartphone wars, they,
through Motorola, were the _only_ company that was actually penalized buy a
federal court for abusing patents, and made to pay damages to Microsoft. Sure
the lawsuit started before Google acquired Motorola, but this judgement
happened two years after they completed the acquisition. I'm sure you'll agree
that asking billions for patents that a court finally decided were only worth
a couple million is pretty egregious.

------
mark_l_watson
Google is very flush with cash right now so this is just another opportunity
to invest their money.

I think that the example of Microsoft shows how important it is for large tech
companies to have lots of cash in order to be able to pivot. I think that
Microsoft is pivoting very well right now into platform independent
productivity software. If, for example, Google's ad revenue diminishes it is
important for them to have long tail reserves to experiment with other ways to
be profitable.

------
anc84
This should really come with a waiver from Google for any submitted patent to
be never ever require any royalties or fees (whatever the terms are in patent
world).

~~~
mckoss
Not that far but:

"As part of our Patent Acquisition Agreement (see section 4.4), sellers will
retain a license back to their patent. For you lawyers out there, the license
is “irrevocable, non­exclusive, non­transferable, non­assignable (including by
operation of law or otherwise), non­sublicensable, worldwide, [and] fully
paid­up.”

~~~
derf_
_> non­exclusive, non­transferable, non­assignable (including by operation of
law or otherwise), non­sublicensable_

That does no one any good except the seller. For any seller, this kind of
thing is table-stakes (no one wants to sell someone a gun pointed at their
head).

But if the seller is specifically concerned about their patent being used
offensively on _others_ (which I suspect was the original commenter's
concern), then this provision is useless.

~~~
minot
> non­exclusive, non­transferable, non­assignable (including by operation of
> law or otherwise), non­sublicensable

I think I am misunderstanding you. If they give much more, Google might as
well just pay one to void their patent instead of assuming ownership.

------
dataker
>remove friction from the patent market and improve the landscape

The question really is: whose landscape is that?

------
amelius
Does anybody know why it costs a fee to submit a patent? Wouldn't it be much
more fair to small inventors if we could just submit a patent for free, and
the moment we'd like to exert that patent in a court, we'd pay for its
examination?

~~~
dragonwriter
> Does anybody know why it costs a fee to submit a patent? Wouldn't it be much
> more fair to small inventors if we could just submit a patent for free, and
> the moment we'd like to exert that patent in a court, we'd pay for its
> examination?

No, since the whole point of that patent system is to have these examined,
reviewed, and notice publicly provided so that people can do business without
_having_ to resort to litigation (sure, with the implicit threat of litigation
in the background, but examination and patent grants are supposed to provide a
degree of clarity.)

Admittedly, that process doesn't work well in all too many cases, but it would
make the system orders of magnitude worse if instead of having an in-advance
examination process we just had a series of patent applications hanging around
waiting for litigation to start to provide an excuse for them to be examined.

~~~
amelius
> Admittedly, that process doesn't work well in all too many cases, but it
> would make the system orders of magnitude worse if instead of having an in-
> advance examination process we just had a series of patent applications
> hanging around waiting for litigation to start to provide an excuse for them
> to be examined.

Why exactly? For whom?

~~~
dragonwriter
> Why exactly?

Because it magnifies the lack of clarity problems in the current poor
examination process which both makes litigation between market participants in
comparable positions more likely _and_ makes market players with less
resources more compelled to knuckle under to those with more because they
can't afford the risk of litigation. The greater clarity is provided in
advance, the less uncertainty/risk is involved in litigation, which both makes
litigation _less_ common and reduces coercion of market participants by those
more able to afford risky litigation.

> For whom?

Pretty much everyone, though less for the richest players in the market and
the patent lawyers.

------
throwawaykf05
1\. This is not new in the corporate world. Large companies like GE have
patent-buying departments that do something similar, except they are are a lot
more flexible (you can sell entire portfolios and even unpatented ideas) and a
lot less efficient. The big difference is, other companies advertise their
intent as being "driving innovation" rather than starving patent trolls.

2\. This is not new for Google either. They have been quietly talking to and
buying from various kinds of patent holders for many years now.

3\. I'd be very interested to know what kinds of patents they're hoping to
buy. Are they looking for "bad" patents to really "disarm the trolls"? Or are
they just hoping to get good ones for cheap and use the "patent troll"
narrative for PR? Unfortunately, I doubt they'll disclose the results of this
promotion.

~~~
dragonwriter
> This is not new in the corporate world.

I think you don't quite understand what is supposed to be new about it.

> Large companies like GE have patent-buying departments that do something
> similar, except they are are a lot more flexible

Google has a patent buying department and program that offers a more flexible,
but less well-defined and streamlined process -- this new program refers to it
as an option for patents that _don 't_ meet the criteria for this experimental
new streamlined process.

The _new_ part (and Google says this directly) is the attempt the experiment
with more streamlined process to reduce friction.

> This is not new for Google either. They have been quietly talking to and
> buying from various kinds of patent holders for many years now.

Having a patent purchase program isn't new, and Google doesn't claim that it
is (in fact, their materials on the new program point to the pre-existing one
as well); what is new is the particular process.

> I'd be very interested to know what kinds of patents they're hoping to buy.
> Are they looking for "bad" patents to really "disarm the trolls"? Or are
> they just hoping to get good ones for cheap and use the "patent troll"
> narrative for PR?

I don't think there really worried about "for cheap"; I think they want to
provide a good experience for sellers so that people interested in arms-length
sales of patents (whether the kinds that trolls are most interested or not)
that might be useful to Google (whether for troll neutralization or otherwise
-- and even good patents in the hands of someone whose interest is to in
maximizing short-term return can be harmful to industry players other than the
patent-holder, so "bad" patents aren't the only threat to Google out there)
have a better chance of being offered to Google, so Google has a chance to act
on them. They don't really need them "for cheap", except compared to the cost
of potential litigation or workarounds -- to Google or, e.g., its hardware
partners -- if some hostile party were to end up holding them.

~~~
throwawaykf05
Google certainly are doing this differently, and I even mentioned how (less
flexible, more efficient, different narrative). But then every company that
engages in this does it differently. GE does it differently from Microsoft
does it differently from IBM does it differently from IV.

In fact, one of the models IV actually seems to have is closer to what Google
is proposing here... They have a "sell your invention" page that has similar
inputs as what Google describes. Again, I've never interacted with IV, but I
expect it's be like any other licensing negotiations rather than "name your
price, we'll buy it if we like it".

So the big difference (other than being a practicing entity) is, to your
point, Google has made the process simpler by eliminating the negotiation
aspect. This certainly would be a good experience for sellers... If it works.
The reason everybody else negotiates is because it's very hard to price
patents (or anything, really). Unless you have a dialog about why each side
think it's worth what, nobody will agree on a price.

As such I would guess Google will end up acquiring only those patents that are
actually useful and people underprice. These will be very few mostly because
1) very few patents actually cover anything useful and 2) people almost always
vastly overvalue their inventions. I say this partly from personal experience
and partly from hearsay, but the fact that the vast majority (95% +) of active
patents lie fallow backs this up. People have paid thousands for a piece of
paper that they're getting 0 returns on.

Google may very well get some good patents submitted, but if they don't
negotiate, they will either leave them on the table or pay more than they're
worth. Certainly would be very interesting to see how this turns out.

~~~
dragonwriter
> Google certainly are doing this differently, and I even mentioned how (less
> flexible, more efficient, different narrative). But then every company that
> engages in this does it differently.

Even so Google is different in the high-level meta structure of how it is
doing it differently, since it has a _both_ an established and still
operational more traditional, more flexible, more general, and less
streamlined system and the new, experimental, less flexible, more specific,
and more streamlined system. It's essentially do a _public_ (not "visible only
to insiders", though obviously the operational details of the results are
unlikely to be public) real-business-at-stake side-by-side test of different
options.

> As such I would guess Google will end up acquiring only those patents that
> are actually useful and people underprice.

I suspect that there are a wide range of potential patents that have expected
value _to Google_ that exceeds their expected value to most (and possibly any)
other market participant that could actually muster the resources to pay that
value, so I don't think "underpriced" is the only option.

I also don't think "useful" in the sense that the patent actually covers a
useful invention is necessary, anything that might provide a remotely
colorable case for a Google-hostile entity to use against something useful
Google does or might do in the life of the patent (even if it doesn't
_actually_ cover the thing Google is concerned about, and even if it wouldn't
survive scrutiny in a lawsuit) can have positive net utility for Google to
secure to prevent a hostile party from doing so if the price tag is less than
the expected cost of defeating it in a lawsuit times the probability of such a
suit should a hostile party get a hold of it.

> Google may very well get some good patents submitted, but if they don't
> negotiate, they will either leave them on the table or pay more than they're
> worth.

Paying above-market price but spending less resources on the pre-purchase
process than would be spent getting down to market price can be a net win. An
even bigger net win if it makes Google such an attractive place to shop your
patents that the most threatening patents that would otherwise get picked up
by Google-hostile entities end up getting shopped to Google first.

------
ikeboy
Does anyone else think they're taking over the world one step at a time?

~~~
pinaceae
given their eroding core business - nope.

------
amelius
Ok, so I have lots of great ideas (even implementations of them), but no money
to submit any patents and/or to pay a lawyer.

~~~
throwawaykf05
Some companies like GE will actually buy your unpatented ideas and file
patents on them if they like them. You can negotiate how much you get paid for
them. Of course, this is in no way as easy as I made it sound, and I've never
done it myself.

------
funnythought
Why only patent?

Sell everything to Google and live on its mercy…. that is what Google wants.

