Google Patents Shipping-Container Data Centers 207
theodp writes "Two years ago, Robert X. Cringely wrote that Google was experimenting with portable data centers built in standard shipping containers. The idea, Cringely explained, wasn't new and wasn't even Google's, backing up his claim with a link to an Internet-Archive-in-a-Shipping-Container presentation (PDF, dated 11-8-2003) that was reportedly pitched to Larry Page. Google filed for a patent on essentially the same concept on 12-30-2003. And on Tuesday, the USPTO issued the search giant a patent for Modular Data Centers housed in shipping containers, which Google curiously notes facilitate 'rapid and easy relocation to another site depending on changing economic factors'. That's a statement that may make those tax-abating NC officials a tad uneasy."
Sun Blackbox? (Score:5, Insightful)
Evil (Score:5, Insightful)
Could someone please remind me how patenting something obvious is not evil?
Basically it reduces the freedom of all law-abiding citizens to do something that's fairly obvious.
Re:Evil (Score:5, Insightful)
Not everyone is evil. That said, how evil Google themselves are remains to be seen. I'm kind of on the fence at this point...
The non-Useful Part (Score:5, Insightful)
Considering the rapid advance of technology, anything that's stood in one place for more than a year or two at most is probably not worth moving. A new one would prove cheaper, faster, at least double the capacity, and all within the same energy budget, or less -- which is what I expect will be the controlling factor for all new data centers.
Re:Evil (Score:4, Insightful)
They COULD publish instead of patenting. (Score:5, Insightful)
Publication of the idea makes it unpatentable "prior art;" once published, the idea can never be patented by anyone. So, if Google's intent were strictly defensive, to prevent someone else from patenting the idea and using it against them, publication would suffice. Thus, the idea that they are "merely protecting themselves" is a bit less persuasive. Of course, there are other reasons for patenting something; looks good on the resume, provides ammunition for cross-licensing battles, and so on, but most of them involve "offense" rather than "defense."
This is not to say that Google has evil intent, just to point out that preemptively patenting something isn't the only way to avoid patent exposure.
Re:They COULD publish instead of patenting. (Score:5, Insightful)
I think it is safer to have a patent which you don't intend to use than a mere publication which might be ignored.
Re:Oops! (Score:4, Insightful)
a little later we got a HAWK missile platoon command post which was an air-transportable shipping container, once again mounted on a trailer, inside the wire-wrapped cpu of the RCA computer used ferrite cores for memory. I think Google patent really would only have defensive value, there is way too much prior art for them to use it offensively.
Re:Oops! (Score:2, Insightful)
I know it's popular sentiment on Slashdot to put down anybody who claims any kind of intellectual property rights, but there's nothing in the patent codes that requires an invention to be a work of genius.
Then again, based on your sarcasm I presume you don't believe this to be a work of genius. You (modestly) admit that you are not a genius. You should be in the running, then. If you can assemble 3/4 of a working prototype of a datacenter wholly enclosed in a movable shipping container, based on what you know right now, I'll lobby to get you rights to 3/4 of the patent.
If you can't build it, though, no deal. "Business process" patents notwithstanding, patents cover actually doing something, remember -- not ideas cooked up by armchair inventors.
But is it obviously obvious? (Score:3, Insightful)
There's all kinds of stuff that we now take for granted that used to be under patent. Did you know that there's an expired patent for the concept of a supermarket? The idea of having customers fetch their own merchandise might seem "obvious" now, but back in 1917, it was original enough to earn patent 1242872.
I don't know what the legal definition of "obvious" is, but in ordinary language, it's just another word for "familiar".
While I didn't read the patent... (Score:2, Insightful)
RTFP! Then complain. I'm not saying the patent isn't totally bogus, but if you're not going to read the patent first STFU!