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Google (Patent Pending)

Posted by Roblimo on Mon Dec 27, 1999 05:24 AM
from the finding-good-and-bad-in-everything dept.
Patents
Jason Eric Pierce writes "I just noticed something interesting while using Google, considering how much it has been praised here by those that tend to denounce software patents: 'Unlike other current generation search engines, which rely heavily on keywords or meta-search technology to find information, Google offers an advanced patent-pending technology called PageRank(TM) to deliver the most relevant results. PageRank ensures that the most important, relevant pages always come up first and that your users will always find what they are looking for.' I love Google, but I hate the idea of patenting a search algorithm/implementation." Good point. Thoughts?
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  • Ever tried to search google for this.. (Score:3)

    by svo (128675) on Monday December 27 1999, @12:29AM (#1443279) Homepage
    http://www.google.com/search?q= more+evil+than+satan [google.com] and see the first hit?
  • I know, in /. the obvious trend is somewhat anti-IPR. But Google apparently utilizes technology (ok, not anything worth a Nobel but inventive anyway) that has not been commonly used in search engines. If they feel that they have made an invention, why not trying to patent it?

    Although software itself is not patentable (and should not be), technologies and algorithms definitely are. The distiction is (and should be) made by the patent office. Self-discretion in this context just means lack of money ;-)

  • I dunno. I agree that the vast majority software patenting that's been going on lately is silly; "One click ordering" is a pretty obvious thing.

    But from what I've read, Google's search logic is pretty ingenious, and not very obvious at all.

    Is this not an example of a case where a patent makes sense? At the moment I'd say that I am not troubled much at all by this one.
  • Patent #93,593,376:
    A method of testing web servers by writing an interesting story for nerds, adding a few large JPG's, and then posting said link to slashdot.org. The result of posting is a large and immediate increase in web traffic, not for purposes of advertising (because said nerds don't have any money to buy things) but only to test the reliability of one's web server.

    Licensing will be a no-brainer. If a company wants to test their servers, they can just mirror a six-month old news story and tell Hemos about it. "Psst - there's an article on here about why Linux web servers aren't as good as NT. It's only six months old - it's still news!"

    - Sorry, Hemos, you walked right into that one.

  • Obvious... (Score:5)

    by Dilbert_ (17488) on Monday December 27 1999, @12:45AM (#1443286) Homepage
    I don't think most Slashdotters are against all patents, but more against patenting the obvious (like the icon for these stories indicates). One-click shopping, or banner ads are so obvious (to one 'skilled in the art', eg. a geek) that they shouldn't be patentable.
    What Google uses is far from obvious, so this merits a patent. I think this was the original idea behind the patent system, but somehow the USPTO seems to have lost the definition of 'obvious' along the way.

  • This is the crux of the question is do slash.dotters object to the principle of patenting ideas full stop, or, just the patenting of dumb ideas.

    If your priciple objection is to the patenting of dumb ideas then you should have no problem with the google patent. Thier search algorithms are certainly different from all the others and produce good and consitent results. It seems like they are patenting something "original, not obvious, and which works". There may be some prior art here as a ton of work has been done on search algorithms over the years, but generally speaking this looks like a "good" patent.

    If the main objection is to patents per se, then I would say we are a bunch of hypocrytes. The whole high tech industry which produces all the goodies we love to play with is driven by patents. IBM is not going to spend billions researching "copper" etc. and give as those lovely gigahertz processors if some company in tiawan can rip off the design as soon as it is working.

  • Search engine admins are constantly in a cat and mouse game with the Web. It's not just cat and mousing with word spammers (first rank down pages with words in alphabetical order... word spammers strike back... then try to parse pages a bit.. word spammers strike back... et cetera...). Styles of web page writing alter over time, and there are issues over the mutability of pages and the such. (Frames fall into fashion.. frames fall out of fashion..)

    Search engine admins should have the freedom to tinker with their ranking algorithms without getting nailed by patent sharks. Besides, copying a search algorithm is a bit difficult if the algorithm isn't published. Search enginges don't have to publish their methods to build a user base. They just have to do a good job.

    So, Google is probably justified in seeking a patent. One can't be too carefull. But if Google starts pulling an Amazon, it's time to boycott them.
  • Maybe the patents are needed in some way to compensate for research costs, but I'd think that nowadays the life-time of patents is much too long. 25 years (or whatever) was maybe fine 100 years ago but nowadays technology of 10 years ago is obsolete, so I'd say that if patents are really a necessary evil (I don't like them anyway), the duration for computer-related patents should be shortened (5 years should be more than long enough to give the google guys their cash). Methinks.

  • Patents are good. (Score:3)

    by rappybaby (53126) on Monday December 27 1999, @01:09AM (#1443300) Homepage
    I love Google, but I hate the idea of patenting a search algorithm/implementation

    Well then how selfish are you? You love Google but you're opposed to them trying to make a buck from the technology for which you love them. You'd rather they didn't patent it, and someone like Lycos could come along and say "Thanks for doing all the research Google, this technology will work great in our new search engine".

    And you know the masses will all go visit Lycos and click on their banner ads, because instead of wasting money on "research" and/or "development", they've been spending their money on ads on the sides of buses.

    And then Google will go bust, and all their workers will go home and have no money to put food on the tables of their families.

    But it's ok, because patents are bad, because Slashdot said so.
  • Anyone whose search engine returns this result for More Evil than Satan Himself [google.com] can have a patent. That's one SMART search engine.
  • There is a great deal of difference in someone owning a patent and wielding it when they shouldn't be. I think whilst we live in a world where there are software patents it is a good idea for google to make sure that they have the one for the technology they created, rather than let some ignorant person manage to give it to a competitor, who might use it against Google.

    I know that's a bit unlikely, but do you really think Barnes and Noble were thinking 'AHA! we've pulled a swift one on Amazon - they won't realise we've stolen their technology? Of course not, they were just using an obvious idea - the fact that they didn't get the patent process started quick enough must be the only reason Amazon got the patent and not them.

    So rather than let someone else try and get it, Google should get it themselves, but not be aggressive with it...

  • Semi-important link (Score:5)

    by bons (119581) on Monday December 27 1999, @01:24AM (#1443308) Homepage Journal
    Since we're going to discuss PageRank [stanford.edu] and it's patentability, You might want to read about it first.
  • A question for your question: Do "Slashdotters" all have the same opinion? Methinks the answer to that one is a loud NO. :-)

    In past Slashdot articles about patents, some have come down in favour of them, others are against them all. However, I think your topic needs to be sub-divided a little more: a lot of people are against the concept of being able to essentially patent algorithms (rather than hardware, for example).

    I honestly don't know where I stand on this. Many patents that are just glorified descriptions of algorithms seem stupid to me. However, in the current state of Computer Science, many businesses *are* putting in the hours of research and coming up with new inventions. Those inventions just happen to be algorithms. So maybe a patent is ok in some cases. On the other hand, my training is as a mathematician and I would be horrified if somebody patented an algorithm for factoring numbers, for example (in fact, the RSA patent is a bit galling for that reason).
  • the problem is when they're enforced where they shouldn't be... what amazon did was less protecting their rights, and more trying to look like Microsoft and beating up their competitors.

    If Google didn't patent this, whose to say Altavista wouldn't patent it tomorrow and sue them? Hopefully, if someone wants to make a search engine similiar to Google's, they'll be nice enough to keep from ripping them to pieces...

    I don't really know, I don't know the Google folks too well. But a lot of /. folk seem to put a lot of faith in them, I think they'd do the right thing if it came up.
  • IBM is not going to spend billions researching "copper" etc. and give as those lovely gigahertz processors if some company in tiawan can rip off the design as soon as it is working.

    Wouldn't they? They spent billions on the PC, and made it open. That didn't turn out so badly for them.

    People spend big bugs on researching things that are then made freely available to the body of human knowledge every day. It's called "science".

    I'd say patents shouldn't last 25 years; 3 sounds good.
  • quote One-click shopping, or banner ads are so obvious (to one 'skilled in the art', eg. a geek) that they shouldn't be patentable.
    What Google uses is far from obvious, so this merits a patent"

    A few years back the one-click shopping and banner adds were not as 'obvious' as they are now and if Google wouldn't patent it's search technique, it would be as obvious as the other 2 patents in a few years, because their technique would've been widespread. Obvious patents are just obvious because the techniques are common.

    It is true that it is crazy to patent something already used across the globe... That's what is against those requests. The fact that google chooses to request a patent on their stuff while it's still new, is just common business, and common sense.

    Whether such a technique should be 'rewarded' with a patent is another story.

    Greetz,

    MarsDude
  • What I hate about patent is that they mean that you just cant do something anymore, even if you (re-)invent it yourself. The probability of reinventing is much higher with simple inventions, of course, but if somebody has never heard of Google (and can prove this) and has the same idea, he is not allowed to use it. That is not fair.

  • Re:Patenting is bad (Score:3)

    by phil reed (626) on Monday December 27 1999, @01:51AM (#1443320) Homepage
    What I dislike the most about patents, is that they actually are a legal way of creating a monopoly.

    Which was actually the intent. The idea behind patents is that the person who thought of it should have a monopoly. The trade-off is that in exchange for that monopoly:

    • The technology must be published, so that everybody can see it;
    • The monopoly expires after a relatively limited time (in the U.S., 20 years). After that, it's fair game for anybody.
    This 20 year time period seems a bit long in the Internet era (which works in dog years), but it's worked for a long time.


    ...phil
  • The original thinking behind patents, IMHO, is to encourage the development of novel products. Google has a superior product based on a search algorithm that is head and shoulders above the rest, both in originality and accuracy. In order to fully benefit from their superior product, they need to have their bread and butter insured against the actions of parasitic organizations that would otherwise leech ideas off of pioneering companies (in this case Google). Patents are not bad, they are just more susceptible to abuse than they could be. Fault lies with the USPTO, not the intrinsic concept of patents itself.

    .{redmist}.
    -------------------------------------------------
  • Larry Page's paper PageRank: Bringing Order to the Web [stanford.edu] is available in Page's home page [stanford.edu] at Stanford University. You may also want to have a look at Google's press release [google.com].

    The relevancy of hits in Google seems to be pretty good, but the "I'm feeling lucky (TM)" thing IMHO is a dumb feature.

  • I don't think so. I think it's pretty close to obvious in that when told to solve the relevance problems that search engines are facing, one is almost guaranteed to come up with something like this. What isn't obvious is whether it will work well. To determine that, you need to do some serious testing.

    The fact that no-one else was doing this doesn't mean that no-one else thought of it or that it isn't obvious.

    It would be nice if someone familiar with patent laws could tell us whether "it's obvious, but I'm the only one who believed in it" is grounds for a patent. I'm not sure how I feel about that myself, but I'm leaning toward "no".
    --

  • I agree. Cached pages are a great feature. If someone were attempting to make this a vorbotten practice, I would be most unhappy. If one does not wish the public to view information, he should not commit to posting it on to the internet in the first place. Once such a transaction has been established, it is in public view. Some people wish to subject us to a bunch of silly laws for to further their own greed and cause problems for the rest of us. I say get rid of those silly people and make them publish books.

  • Re:Obvious... (Score:3)

    by Zigg (64962) <matt@zigg.com> on Monday December 27 1999, @02:21AM (#1443335)

    A few years back the one-click shopping and banner adds were not as 'obvious' as they are now ...

    Patenting ``one-click shopping'' is just preposterous. You might as well have patented cookies. And if you did, you'd shoot yourself in the foot, because another solution would be found to the problem, and you wouldn't even see cookie support in browsers.

    Banner ads, OTOH, depend on being widespread and the concept being freely available to catch on. I doubt you could patent them if you tried, though with the government existing as it does today, I won't take any bets.

    Now Google's technology would obviously be a great boon if it was published. I'd love to see it. But Google's patent extends to what amounts to their entire business, and does not extend to the protocols that folks need to depend on to communicate with their server. It's all behind the scenes and it provides a better product. On top of that, the patent's existence ensures that down the road, we'll all be treated to a good description of it that we can use.

  • I think they'd do the right thing if it came up.

    Speaking of ``the right thing'', wouldn't it be ingenious of them to pull an RSAREF on PageRank -- but rather than say ``for noncommercial use only'', require use of the algorithms to be GPL'd?

    Kind of a silly idea, and certainly will not sit well with quite a few OSS folk (I personally find some fault in it), but it's a neat idea nonetheless.

  • Well, there is a problem with a short lifespan for technology patents: how do you define what is a technology patent? Let's say that we are going to allow original algorithms to be patented for 5 years, with hardware and so forth falling into the conventional patent limits. What about a hardware implementation of an algorithm, like an ASIC? OK, so we have to include hardware. But if we say that computing hardware is patentable for a shorter-than-normal duration, than how do we handle hardware that can be used in computers and elsewhere, like a special pivot designed for a disk drive and also useful for microsurgical instruments? It is very difficult to differentiate between what you want to protect and what you don't. My personal thinking is that code, however implemented, should be copyrightable but not patentable. Then, implementations would be protected, but algorithms would be available to all under fair use standards.

  • Re:Patents are good. (Score:3)

    by Greg Merchan (64308) on Monday December 27 1999, @02:37AM (#1443346)
    I agree, but I'm not sure why. I generally agree that algorithms shouldn't be patentable, but this seems like an exception. Maybe it isn't, but I'm trying to find the cause of my unrest. Some things come to mind:

    1) The most hated patent: LZW. Why? It seems that Unisys submarined the patent; they waited until it was widely used then started suing to collect royalties. Is this the real history, or did people not read the licensing terms which permit gratis use for 'non-commercial, non-profit GIF-based applications'? According the the GNU no-gif page Unisys retracted these terms in 1999; that does fit the submarine story. But which is the problem here, a patented algorithm or the licensing practices of Unisys? If the former then the laws need changing, else boycott Unisys or try to file suit for dishonest licensing. (IANAL, so I don't know if that's possible or what magic words to invoke.)

    2) The most hated, but assuredly bad, patents: Amazon's One-Click Shopping. This is fairly clear-cut, the patents should not have been granted because the technique is obvious. Everything here has been said many times over - next...

    3) The worst recent change in the US patent sustem: patenting business models. This was probably to be expected as soon as an algorithm was patented. We seem to be on a slippery slope. Prediction: 'thought crimes' already exist under the name of 'hate crimes'. Will the penalty for execution of patented ideas on wetware be punishable by financial penalties or will the infringing computer be deactivated? This is not an example of the evils of capitalism or intellectual property or patents, it is the abandonment of the ideas which is the basis for those things. If man does not have his basic rights - life, liberty, property, pursuit of happiness, the sanctity of his mind (aka. religion) - then he does not have the rights which necessarily depend on those.

    Looking at these things, what of Google's patents? They are not submarine patents, good. They are not obvious (right?), good. Are they of those things which infringe upon the rights of others? I don't know. Google has the fairly unique (nowadays) feature of not throwing banner adds all over the page. Instead, they seem to be planning to generate revenue by providing a search engine service. I don't think they've patented the business model, good. They have patented what makes their business model work. As a result they provide an advertisement-free search engine to everyone and pay for it by providing customization services to their customers. If they weren't they only ones who could do this in this way, someone else (MS?) would surely come along and use Google's algorithms to provide the customized system for free. This would destroy Google and leave the system in the hands of whoever could use the service as a loss-leader - and we know what happens when those people no longer need to take a loss.

    Perhaps I need to rethink my stand on algorithm patents. It seems that without them we will lose the good service businesses which we enjoy today. If the algorithm is patentable, then there is no need to patent the business model; if the business model is not patented, then anyone who does it better can do so.
  • Nobody seems to have made the point that it's not patents that are "evil", it's using thge courts to extort money out of people for using an obvious technique.

    Patents were originally intended to support the free exchange of ideas by giving people a short period of protection for the ideas which might have taken a lot of time and money to develop to ensure that it was worth people investing time and effort in new ideas.

    Things like one-click ordering would take about 15 seconds to think up and about a day to implement and so are not deserving of patent protection. And anyone who uses the courts to enforce such a patent has basically just found a way to make money undeservidly and deserves the contempt they get.

    You have to look at each patent on it's own merits. It's hard for a software patent to be reasonable because software ideas just are not that expensive to develop that they need protection.

  • Oh, I have an easy solution to that:

    I wasn't talking about three years for technology patents, I was talking about three years for patents, period.

    If you can't make a buck off your technology in three years, license it to somebody who can.

    If not, then get out of my way and let me use it.

  • If the main objection is to patents per se, then I would say we are a bunch of hypocrytes. The whole high tech industry which produces all the goodies we love to play with is driven by patents. IBM is not going to spend billions researching "copper" etc. and give as those lovely gigahertz processors if some company in tiawan can rip off the design as soon as it is working.


    Hypocrisy is a bit strong; just because someone is opposed to something that provides them with a benefit doesn't make that person hypocritical. What would be hypocritical (IMHO) is one who opposes patents in general but supports them for his particular purpose.

    I'm opposed to patents in general. There may be reason in the pharmaceutical industry (note that I work in the software industry, not the pharmaceutical industry) due to the heavy regulatory burden that is faced (drug trials and all that). Even there, I would prefer explicit compensation for their expenses or outright subsidies over patents.

    If nothing else, I simply think it's wrong for the government to grant an individual a monopoly on the use of an idea.

  • Ask RMS (Score:3)

    by Greyfox (87712) on Monday December 27 1999, @02:44AM (#1443354) Homepage Journal
    I'd love to hear RMS' take on the topic, what with them being in his home town and all. I bet he comes out against it. Software patents, if allowed to continue, WILL destroy the programming industry in the US.

    The other day, someone was asking how long the internet boom could continue. I think the boom is part of a natural shift into an information based economy. Countries that restrict the flow of information by artifical means, be it censorship of the net in Australia or artificial restrictions imposed by patent and trademark laws which require anyone with a web presence to have a substantial and expensive legal team, will end up killing the boom in their borders. Said countries will end up being the new third world countries, strangling the wealth that the information age offers. Countries that make an effort to embrace the internet and assist the flow of information will most likely enjoy the boom indefinitely.

  • I think all sane people should be against patenting the obvious. Ruling out patenting the obvious requires no change in patent law, just having the USPTO follow their own guidelines better.

    Where I (and I think many of us here) differ from the USPTO is in patenting technology. Patents were designed to protect the development of tools, not technology. You develop a better adjustable wrench, you patent it (tool). You never were supposed to be able to patent the technique of tightening a bolt by using a wrench (technology). Software patents, business practice patents and algorithm patents are all patenting technology, not tools.

    Patenting technology is dangerous, since it stifles innovation, development, and even the activities of the general public. It also encourages flooding an already overloaded legal system with long and expensive lawsuits. The only people who really benefit from technology patents are the lawyers.

    As for the specific Google patent, I would agree that the technology it patents is not obvious. Also, given that the current system allows technology patents, it's far easier for Google to defend their business from someone else's patent if they've got one themselves, so I don't begrudge them a defensive technology patent. The point where I get upset, and will get upset at Google, is if and when they use the patent as a tool for threatening (or suing) someone else.

    ----

  • Re:Obvious... (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    A few years ago? Hell, before the web even existed the idea of banner ads and one click shopping were obvious.

    Banner ads are obvious to anyone with any marketing savvy whatsoever. They have been univerally used in every medium that can be used for advertising, hence the very term "banner." Certainly if you had given a brief description to any publication based marketing developer of the web, oh, say 50 years ago, the idea of banner ads would come to him in about, oh, 5 minutes. It's that obvious. *Implimenting* them in the particular medium might be less obvious, but the idea itself isn't. What would be unique and revolutionary, even to the least sophisticated end user, these days would be a publication medkum that *didn't* use "banner ads."

    One click marketing? My local grocer has been using it for over 75 years that I know of personally. It's possible that they've been using it much longer than that, ( My local grocer has been in operation continuously for over 200 years, only 75 with the current owners). Here's how a transaction goes, (ring, ring, ring...."Yeah, hi Pete, look, next time you send the van out can you send me the usual, and add a bag of Doritos(tm) too? Yeah, thanks.")

    Notice a couple of key points in this transaction. I havn't identified myself, my grocer knows who I am without direct input from me. The bag of Doritos is delivered to my door. No financial exchange is done explicitly, finacial matters arn't even brought up.

    My grocer has a database of customers, cookies if you will, of his regular customers, i.e. he knows who I am and can recognize the sound of my voice and unique speach patterns as well as my unique buying patterns. The only thing I've had to explicitly order is the one item that he knows I *don't* normally get, ( I'm alergic to all flavors of Doritos, honest). Once a month I write him a check for the amount I owe him, an amount that is contained in a database "hyperlinked" to my order record, i.e. his 3x5 card file.

    One click shopping has been prior art for a long, long time and is obvious, as an idea, to anyone with experience in a retail trade.

    These ideas are so obvious that any sharp 12 year old could have come up with them without expending a great deal of mental effort.

  • Google seems to have an aversion to advertising and keyword sales. Why are they bothering with a patent if they don't seem to be interested in generating a cent of revenue through normal means? Is it because of terms of some government funding they've gotten?
  • If Google's search engine is so original and they manage to keep it on tracks then there will be minimal problems. Maybe we will loose some dynamism in its progress but it is hard to level this point. Meanwhile if they do not touch similar algorithms that may slightly resemble their engine then we have all doors open to progress and an healthy competition.

    However if they jump on the bandwagon on "how unique" their search engine is and stop making any serious developements on it. If, beyond this, they start playing lawsuits over similar systems. And if they simply try to hold market tighten to their original idea then we will have a lot of trouble. We have tons of examples on how such policies killed whole technologies. I cannot evaluate what benefits/losses we got from such thing as STAC vs Microsoft. But we can be sure that this story placed "disk compression" systems into a marginal alley. Today we have 6, 9, 13, 20, 28 Gb disks. Most of us may not feel how critical such systems can be sometimes, even if you have a lot of space laying around for most of the time. However, there are situations when a flexible, fast and light compression system would do a lot of help, specially in some extreme moments. However there are a lot of caveats on those systems that exist today. And I believe that this happens because disk compression is still healing from this conflict.
  • Let's give them the benefit of the doubt for a moment and assume that they have a legitimate non-obvious patent claim here. Then from a practical point of view, wouldn't it be great if we could persuade them to allow use of the patent in all free (speech) software projects. It would aid their PR, and would still protect them from people like Altavista. Note that due to the very nature of patents, this would enforce a form of copyleft on any software using their patent - making the software non-free would impinge the patent licensing agreement.

    I might add that this is simply a practical compromise to the situation, and not a general solution for patents. If anyone here were ever to patent anything, then I would strongly recommend them to put the patent in the intelectual public domain. Patenting, unlike copyright, takes away more that just the right to someone's work - it takes away the right to someone's thoughts. Now whether you live in RMS's communist (from community) society or ESR's anarchist one, this impinges on your basic communal/individual freedoms and is hence a Bad Thing.

    Still, until we can persuade the (US) government that software patents in their present form don't work -- and many of the upcoming court cases should hopefully help us do that -- approaching the company involved seems to be the only alternative to putting our head in the sand and hoping they don't see us.
  • it takes away the right to someone's thoughts

    How the HELL do you reach this conclusion?

    The only thing a patent grants the owner is a limited ability to prevent others from using an invention. Google comes up with a new search engine and patents it. Anyone can still think all they want about the methods used, and in fact do R&D on it without infringing. In fact, without patent protection the chance is you WOULDN'T be thinking about the Google algorithms because they would be kept as a trade secret.

    Governments take away your rights every time they make a law. The laws against murder take away your rights to shoot somebody just because you have a headache.

    The point of laws is that the OVERALL gain is supposed to outweigh the loss of freedom associated with having a law. Back in the 17th century governmants worked out the principle that granting patents in exchange for requiring the inventor to publish his technology was a benefit to society as a whole. If it weren't for patents, the Google inventors WOULD NOT be publishing their algorithms and you would have no idea how their search engine worked unless you tried to re-engineer it yourself, a needless duplication of effort.

    until we can persuade the (US) government that software patents in their present form don't work

    I won't argue with that - any system can be improved.

  • You are obviously unaware that in many fields, drugs and genetic reasearch come immedeiately to mind, it can take more than 25 years to bring a product to market *after* the patent in approved.

    I'm not unaware of that at all, I just don't think sick people are willing to wait 25 years to get well.

    If you can't bring your product to market in 3 years, then somebody else will. You can play on a level playing field after that.

    If it takes 25 years to figure out if the product is safe and effective, then everybody else is in the same boat as you anyway, and your patent doesn't protect you anyway because nobody can sell the product.

    If 3 year patents mean we have to come up with faster ways to test drugs, then good. If we can't, which is entirely possible, then we don't need the damn patents anyway.
  • Incorrect. IBM is a smaller percentage player in a much larger pond.

    They've made vast scads of money off PCs. If they weren't open, they'd have made 100% of a tiny market, for much less money than what they've made of their tiny piece of a huge market.

    IBM's own stupidity in trying to close it back up hurt them, not their decision to open it.

    If IBM didn't agree with this, they wouldn't be pushing open software now as well as the open hardware.

    Hell, this is the company that recently release an open spec for PowerPC motherboards, too.

    I didn't get the history wrong, folks. I was there, I lived it, and I'm telling you that the majority of you are reading this now because the hardware was cloneable, not despite it.
  • Until Google starts to sue infringers, I'm happy with it. It searches extremely well. For instance: Moderate this down (-1, Underwhelming)
    --
  • Well, perhaps their enthusiasm for free/open source software (unless paid mercenery astroturfers count as slashdotters these days), but beyond that I doubt you'll find slashdotters agreeing on much of anything.

    Some of us (such as myself) believe that patents should be eliminated entirely, that they are a diservice to humankind and do more to harm and slow down technological progress in all areas of scientific endeavor than any other single thing.

    Others are against software patents, but do not feel the same reasoning applies to other disciplines.

    Others are simply against the pathetically obvious patents being issued by the USPO, and would like to replace the people issuing these patents but keep the system as it is largely unchanged.

    Still others feel the same as above, except they would like to see the system reformed in various ways. How exactly it would be reformed is a conversation that, among slashdotters at least, will result in numerious, boistrous, and often mutually exclusive opinions and suggestions.

    Finally, there are some here who ardently support and approve of the patenting system just the way it is.

    All of these points of view probably stack up as a minority opinion when taken against all the others.

    The myth of a "typical" slashdotter is one being bandied about by Microsoft-paid astroturfers and the like, and has little if anything to do with reality. It is as nonsensical as arguing that a crowd of people who unanimously expect the sun to rise in the east are therefor conformist and can be expected to agree on just about everything else. As with most things, we mostly disagree on the issue of patents and what to do about them and the problems some of us believe they cause. Hell, we even argue about the implimentation of the one thing we all do agree on -- how best to create and nurture free software (BSD vs GPL, Gnome vs. KDE, etc.). If we can't agree on that, it is highly unlikely we'll agree on anything, except maybe that the sun, probably, will rise in the east tommorow, unless of course it doesn't.
  • Patenting the concept of 'one-click shopping' is ridiculous, granted. But is it ridiculous to patent some novel piece of enabling technology?

    Even patenting an algorithm may be acceptable, if the algorithm is specified enough to be recognizable as such, and complex enough as to not be a basic building block in the whole field of thought. For example, Dijkstra's routing algorithm is recognizable regardless of the implementation language. It even bears the man's name ferchrisakes. And there are alternatives applicable to the problem domain - though they have somewhat different characteristics.

    But patenting the binary search is dead wrong. It's like seeking a patent on covalent bonding. Not only is there prior art that predates any binary search implementation (since it's an obvious way of zeroing in on an item in a sorted collection of anything), it's also a fundamental building block, with hardly a comparable alternative.

    Worst of all is that which has been emerging lately. Umbrella patents on a concept are evil. These seek to corner a broad idea and corral all implementations. Things like 'one-click shopping' are right on the fringe of the umbrella patent trend. And the only reason the trend didn't get squashed on the first lame attempt is because the people granting the patents are not up to date or knowledgable in the computer field. Much like the legal system isn't up to date on the computer industry (witness the DOJ vs M$ sideshow. Melissa, et al). Much like the legislature isn't up to date on the computer industry (crypto restrictions).. Blah, blah, blah.

    As you point out though, there is a benefit to patents - even the questionable ones on algorithms. In time, we'll get to see their innards. With 'trade secrets' we do not have this option, until somone brute-forces it. Isn't this the case of Intel, with AMD making a workalike having guessed at the contents of the 'trade secret' black box?

  • More Power To 'Em! (Score:3)

    by InfiniterX (12749) on Monday December 27 1999, @04:12AM (#1443407) Homepage
    Why is this patent bad? Google's people invested their hard work and time into developing a page analysis method, and they are more than within their rights to patent it.

    Patenting a concept (i.e. the "concept" of banner ads) is relatively questionable business behavior. Patenting an IMPLEMENTATION of that is not - it helps the developers protect their investments, and it forces everyone else to find a better way to do the same thing.

    Here Google's authors can rest assured that nobody will steal the fruits of their hard work, and it prompts the rest of the community to come up with a different implementation of a page rankings algorithm that may be better or serve a different purpose.

    I'm sure that if someone were to release a competing search engine using Google's algorithm, this entire community would be up in arms about it. So why don't you allow Google the chance to protect their work?

  • The fact that no-one else was doing this doesn't mean that no-one else thought of it or that it isn't obvious.

    Why the hell not? It seems to me the fact there no one else was doing it is a pretty good clue that it wasn't obvious. How long have search engines been around? There are many search engines out on the net, using all kinds of weird methods, most of which are ineffective.

    One of the more famous cases of a patent granted on this basis was the use of a ramp to slow down a bowling ball when it was returned to the bowler. Prior to this invention people had problems with the balls getting damaaged, people getting broken fingers, etc. when the balls arrived back at the front of the lane.

    An inventor came up with the idea of a ramp, and tried to patent it. At first it was rejected because it looked so obvious. HOWEVER, on appeal the patent was allowed because of the fact that the problems it solved had been around for a long time, and nobody previously had come up with this as a solution - proving the idea was in fact not obvious.


  • There's nothing wrong with taking out a software patent, in today's crazy world. It's a good way to make yourself look good to investors, for example.

    The problem is suing other people based on that patent.
  • Google Search: "the end of the world as we know it" [google.com]

    Search engine envy? Can't disagree with the second result, though..

  • The idea of using links/citation for ranking the importance of search results predates the web, and other groups had built search engines based on rankings using links/citations before Google (but didn't go the startup route). It seems to me that, up to some tweaks, PageRank is one of the more straightforward implementations for the web.

    It's really hard to tell without seeing the patent how broad its claims are. On the whole, this patent doesn't seem any worse than a lot of other software patents. Depending on its claims, however, I think there may be some published prior art.

    Incidentally, take a look at NorthernLight (www.nlsearch.com); they have a patent on their search folders, again something that is very close to widely used techniques.

    On the whole, startups don't have a choice: VCs want patents. Those patents are needed for defense and negotiation with other companies in cross-licensing deals. Almost everybody (other than the lawyers) would be better off if these software patents didn't exist, but as long as the patent office will grant them and courts will enforce them, everybody has to get them.

  • The crux of the issue for me is that I don't think "easily independently invented" is very measurable. A lot of best software algorithms I've seen have been smack in the forehead obvious *after* you've seen them, but in fact weren't discovered for a decade or more. To look at an algorithm and determine whether another programmer could duplicate it independently in x amount of time is worse than the halting problem.

    We don't patent expressions of natural language, even when they required years of unique experience to provide a never before discovered insight with profound effects on readers. Language is copyrighted to protect the work that went into collating and presenting the information. I think the difference between natural and computer language is one of degree, especially in the realm of pseudo-agorithms expressed in a natural language, which is what is really patented. We would be better off protecting algorithmic implementations with copyright than with patents protecting algorithmic ideas.

    Imagine if authors could patent the story idea of a trip to Mars. Think of all the great science fiction that wouldn't have been written in 17 years. The fact that authors copy each other's ideas with their own original twists is to the benefit of all, including the author with the original idea, whose market is expanded. I don't really think software is all that different.
  • No, you missed the middle ground, which I think is where most slashdotters will stand:

    We are against software patents.

    IBM can go ahead and patent all they want on physical computing devices. Just don't get us (or me anyway) riled up by trying to PATENT some piece of software - that's what copyrights are for. And don't even THINK about patenting an algorithm - those are just not patentable, if you believe the current US patent laws. An algorithm is a mathematical formula and as such, is unpatentable. Of course, that hasn't stopped anyone in the computing industry before, witness RSA.

    Google is just fine if they want to COPYRIGHT the code they've written. They'd just better not think about PATENTING "index all the pages on the internet and rank pages by how many other pages link to them." That's an algorithm and is unpatentable. Of course, like I said, the USPTO is certainly not going to pay attention to their own laws and will surely grant them a patent for it anyway.

    -=-=-=-=-

  • Software patents are a Bad Thing. It's good to fight to change them. But until they actually are changed, we do have to respect the system.

    However, until the patent system is changed, it can yet prove useful. Consider: The GPL uses copyright, which is supposed to prevent people from copying works, to instead allow such copying. Something similar could (albeit more expensively) be done with patents relatively easily. Get the rights to it, then give others those same rights freely.

    Last I checked, Google was Open-Source. Since OSS and the typical uses of software patents are antithetical, my guess is that this is what Google is trying to do. It'll apply a GPL-like license to the patent: you may use this technology in your products, provided that either 1) those products do not involve any other patented technology or 2) any other patented technology used is licensed is distributable and usable under the terms of this license.

    It's a shame that Google has to do this; patents are expensive. But when you have a system that people twist to knock others out, you have to twist it too in order to survive.

  • That's not the law! (Score:3)

    by werdna (39029) on Monday December 27 1999, @07:30AM (#1443468) Homepage Journal
    The standard is not whether the invention was obvious to "one 'skilled in the art', e.g. a geek'." To the contrary, the standard is whether "the differences between the subject matter sought to be patented and the prior art are such that the subject matter as a whole would have been obvious at the time the invention was made to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which said subject matter pertains." 35 U.S.C. s. 103(a).

    The issue is not whether in hindsight an expert would think the issue is obvious, but whether a dull, ordinary, hack familiar with the art without the benefit of knowing the solution -- or even a requirements specification of the problem -- would find the differences obvious.

    So what, then, if we are to charge Amazon with invalidity, is the relevant prior art that makes obvious the one-click solution? And if the solution was so obvious, given the need to do it, why wasn't it done by others before Amazon did it? It is interesting to note that B&N's lawyers couldn't come up with a plausible answer to that question during the preliminary injunction hearings. Where is the "clear and convincing" evidence of invalidity, then, apart from the naked assertion of obviousness so frequently asserted in these letters?

    I do not assert that invalidating prior art does not exist. I merely note that no one has come close, so far, to presenting any.

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