I'm the author... and yes, the 'implication' is exactly what I'm saying. As I said in the post, you can argue that Google would have published in a world without software patents, but the purpose of patents is to incentivize publication where otherwise advances would remain secret, and that's the sequence that we saw. In that sense, we're seeing exactly what the patent system envisages.
Your point of view seems to be that companies would publish their secret sauce freely without IP protection, for the warm fuzzies / indirect benefits that would result. You're free to believe that, but the patent system is based around the idea that corporations don't behave so altruistically - that people with billion dollar ideas don't want to give them away.