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Comment by bobdole12345 | Hacker News Reader

They're using it to build codecs they want to remain open source and public, that means, because the patent system is fucking broken, they need to defensively patent literally everything they can possibly get surrounding the technology before a troll slips one through and starts harassing their codec users.

Because it'll happen, and the FUD will cause their partners to abandon plans to roll out the new codecs "until this legal cloud gets resolved".

It's not a matter of Google being evil, it's a matter of Google having lawyers who want to protect the intent of what they're doing.

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This is disinformation BS trying to spin the story around.

Yeah, google and everyone else should try to patent everything. But if the patent office says "this guy invented this first" then it is an a*hole/evil move to try to fight the little guy for the patent "because they are building codecs"

They should just concede, pay a symbolic fee, and that will even help the little guy fight patent trolls because google paying a fee for royalties is stronger than many legal teams a troll can afford.

instead, see this google quote from https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/06/inventor-says-go... "Google denies that it's trying to patent Duda's work. A Google spokesperson told Ars that Duda came up with a theoretical concept that isn't directly patentable, while Google's lawyers are seeking to patent a specific application of that theory that reflects additional work by Google's engineers." (how can someone even say that with a straight face?!)

meaning: they are outright stealing it on what they hope is a technicality. How would they like if IBM patented their video codecs, but in a video application, because the codec was only theoretical concept? They claim the patent system is broken but here Google is clearly being the evil actor and contributing to the problem more than anyone else.

In the end the true message is: "we [google] want everyone to believe they can use our free codecs without fear of all the patents we have on them, but if anyone makes the exact same offer, we will not trust them and try to steal the patents for ourselves"

Google no doubt considers it worthwhile to try exhausting every possible avenue to seize control of the patent before giving up. This is win/win if them if their stated intent of protecting their free codecs is to be believed. Either they end up with the patent or they nail down a rock solid precedent that everything in their codec is in the public domain. Either way they achieve their goal of not having to worry about having outside patents filed on the contents of their codecs.

Patent and copyright law put a lot of stock in the idea that the creator made efforts to protect their investment. If they didn't put this very effort in, their case would be hurt down the road.

This is a problem with the IP system, not a corporation being evil, this is a corporation working in a shit system.

And they can't steal something in the public domain. Like you said, someone is going to rally to fight the patent.

Aside, can't they lobby for a better patent system?

Other parts of Google are probably quite happy with how the patent system works right now. It's just in this case where they're not interested in making any money off of that technology, but rather knowing that they won't have to pay for someone else's technology.

Google has been pushing for that a long while, but they've been pushing defensive patents and huge cross license agreements with everyone who will join. This is to keep the damage the patent system does contained as much as they can while the US government moves at it's glacial pace.

https://www.theverge.com/2012/10/9/3479492/google-software-p...

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