Hacker News Reader

> This is submarine-ary of the first order.

The term submarine patent is typically used for a patent application where the applicant delayed issuance and kept amending the application until a worthwhile target appeared. Without looking at the application, I can't say whether that's true in this case.

However, US patent law changed some time ago to limit the value of this strategy. It used to be that the 20 year term started when the patent issued. Now patents expire 20 years after application, even if they're not issued until 10-15 years after application.

> Google's official founding date was September 7, 1998, two months after the patent application was filed. I doubt they were in any position to search all of the patents applied for

The "publish one year after application" rule for US patent applications is fairly recent. (I don't think that it was retroactive when it was introduced.)

So, even if Google wanted to search for patents back then, they couldn't have.

I don't know if immoral is the right word here, more incredibly irresponsible.

You're saying incredible irresponsibility is moral or morally neutral?