Comment by chocopuff | Hacker News Reader

Comment by chocopuff | Hacker News Reader

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The hypocrisy is unbelievable: Google is a major investor in patent troll firm Intellectual Ventures.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intellectual_Ventures

http://www.techflash.com/seattle/2011/05/intellectual-ventur...

Amazon, Apple, Cisco, eBay, Microsoft, etc. are also investors but they are not acting like whiny babies and acting all high and mighty going around preaching about how patents are destroying innovation.

Fact 1:

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Google was willing to pay for $3-$4 billion for the same Nortel patents.

Fact 2:

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Google's page rank algorithm is patented. if you don't believe in patents then why the hell do you own patents?

Fact 3:

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Let me quote another commenter on another blog: "How many small and innovative companies has Google killed off by replicating what they do and making it available for free? Great way to keep the next Google from springing up."

Message to Google:

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You can use other people's technology, you just have to pay for them. You are being sued left and right not because there's some organized propaganda against you, it's because you STOLE from other companies.

According to PaidContent, about IV investors:

Also, some of these companies, including Google and Cisco, have been investors for many years, and in the early years IV had a very different tone. Back then, the giant patent-holding company, which was founded by ex-Microsoft CTO Nathan Myhrvold, billed itself as a “patent defense fund.” (Clearly, it hasn’t turned out that way. ) http://paidcontent.org/article/419-giant-patent-holder-intel...

IV was founded in 2000 and they didn't file their first suit until 2010. Companies certainly change their business model ("pivot," if you will).

Regardless, I'd like to see Google (and many others) divest themselves of their interest in IV.

I'm pretty sure their interest in IV these days would be more accurately characterized as "protection".

1) Google needs patents to stay in business because other companies have patents to use against them.

2) See #1. Stanford owns the patent on PageRank because it was developed by Stanford graduate students on an NSF research grant. Not really relevant.

Even more ironic: Stanford got a significant amount of shares from Google for allowing Google exclusive license.

Also, it is a mathematical algorithm in every sense of the word. A lot of patents aren't.

As far as I can tell all software patents are patents on math. Here is one example of a software patent reduced to mathematics and logic the extends it to all software patents: http://paulspontifications.blogspot.com/2011/04/patent-58931...

The thing about Intellectual Ventures is there seems to be a fine or maybe non-existent line between companies-investing-in-IV and companies-strong-armed by IV.

I'd agree it would be even better if Google never gave a dime to patent trolls but there's a little more to the story than just Google investing in IV.

See: http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/06_27/b3991401....

Indeed. And once Google stocks up on thousands of purchased patents (humorously they just bought a bunch of database patents from IBM, which I have no doubt they're going to start leveraging against Oracle), you will be fully supporting it as they start demanding injunctions and stoppages against Apple and Microsoft products. Right?

Those products that, to put in your don't-understand-software-patents way, STOLE from other people's innovations?

Because it's coming, and it's going to be ugly for everyone. The patent nuclear war approaches.

Your facts seems to opine that Google should simply suffer the system. They didn't make the game, but they are a young company in a industry of longstanding titans. Apple nor Microsoft nor anyone else has a right to billions in quarterly profits for perpetuity.

Once Google has the patents to start injunctions and stoppages, they can get their competitors to the table. That's not nuclear war.

Google is a young company, but it's been in the phone industry at least since it bought Android in 2005. Apple created its iPhone and released it in 2007, so in the phone industry, Google's the senior.

No one has a right to billions of quarterly profits, but no one has a right to violate others' intellectual property, either. Apple and Microsoft are profiting at these levels despite the infringement of other companies.

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