

A Patent Lie: How Yahoo Weaponized My Work - charliepark
http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2012/03/opinion-baio-yahoo-patent-lie/

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rwmj
This is one reason why I have never and will never file any patents for my
current company, even though there would be some financial benefit for me
doing so. Even though the company is very benign and has the best of
intentions with patents, one never knows what could happen in the next 20
years and who those patents might be sold to.

~~~
politician
If those are your convictions, then you have to do more than just not file;
you ought to publish them in a way that allows them to be used in a prior art
defense.

~~~
cpeterso
What makes for good prior art? What is the best way to publish an idea or
invention so it can be used in a prior art defense in the future?

~~~
Symmetry
It can be hard. My dorm's laundry server[1] was actually Slashdotted shortly
before someone filed for a patent on the idea of hooking up a webserver to a
laundry machine. Luckily, being covered in the mass media does put you in a
good position if you get a cease and desist letter, though.

[1]<http://laundry.mit.edu/>

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guelo
"I’ll never file a software patent again, and I urge you to do the same."

Screw the lawyers and MBAs, engineers can put a stop to this if we want to,
all it takes is having the courage of your convictions. You'll probably have
many jobs over your career but a patent is a landmine that will be dangerous
for 20 years, you don't know when it will come back to bite you. They can't
force you to write a patent, you can always get another job.

~~~
huxley
Except someone else is likely to patent the same thing.

Until software patents are killed off what we probably need is an organization
something like the EFF or the Creative Commons (sorta) which could pool those
patents to be used as defences against future attempts to patent software.

Not sure at all if there is a legal framework under which such an organization
could exist.

~~~
nsomething
What makes software patents so special? Whether an idea is novel seems
relative to who you are talking to in my experience.

~~~
dstorrs
Several things:

1) They last a VERY long time as measured in "Internet time"

2) It's very hard to find examples of GOOD software patents. They tend to
either cover too much (one click shopping), or they are really just math
expressed in code (encryption and compression algorithms).

3) They are easy to abuse, since it takes so little time to produce them and
the people who grant them don't really understand them.

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technomancy
A similar story with more details: <http://ploum.net/post/working-with-
patents>

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gm
If your company was acquired by someone and then they ask you to file patents
on the IP that you sold them, then what's so wrong with doing it?

Rather than bitch and whine at Yahoo, why not bitch and whine at your decision
to sell to Yahoo in the first place?

Granted, I think that when you cooperated with the lawyers and helped them
apply for patents on the ideas they acquired, you acted professionally and in
good faith.

If you had purposefully not cooperated and the post was about how you fooled
them and they did not patent any of your ideas, that would have been
professional suicide, and would be best posted anonymously.

So yeah, Yahoo's pursuit of patents is stupid, and this latest action is truly
despicable. But you did what you were supposed to do.

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utopkara
Yahoo's lawsuit is not against any small fish or unrelated business, Facebook
is a direct competitor (Google was too). Please don't take it out of context
and mud it in some emotional fudge.

If you want to be emotional though: Is Facebook is fine with selling people's
private information, and using others' IP in the process? That money Facebook
is soaked with has been made with the lowliest of the bait&switch. It is
obvious that they have used the technologies developed with hard work in other
companies which they are now killing. It is only fair that they pay the fair
price for what they have taken.

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shingen
Yahoo sued Google over GoTo / Overture in 2004, picking up a cool billion
dollars in the process.

This guy wasn't already seriously skeptical about their intentions by 2005
when he joined Yahoo? Yeah OK.

And this: "I thought I was giving them a shield, but turns out I gave them a
missile with my name permanently engraved on it."

Uhm. What? They had just sued Google for a billion dollars. On what planet
does that sound like a shield that you're giving them?

This entire article is a lame attempt by the guy to wash off some guilt he's
apparently feeling. It's ridiculous.

Own it big boy, you sold, enough with the excuses.

~~~
harryh
Andy is a good guy. He was young an naive. He was wrong and he fessed up to
it, and he said he won't do it again. Cut him some slack.

~~~
badclient
It's the "won't do it again" part that really gets me.

As much as I am against it, if the acquisition of my company hinged upon my
agreeing to sign off on some patents to Big Co., I'd do it.

