Do you work at a company that tells its employees that "patents will only be used defensively"? If so pay attention to this because it is your future.
Do you work for a company that gives bonuses for filing patents? Do you use the "only for defensive purposes" assurances as a way to soothe your troubled soul when you take the money? If so, pay attention to this times two.
I think filing patents defensively makes sense. I witnessed this firsthand at Google on the Android team as the patent wars started and because most Googlers are anti-patent, Google was at a severe disadvantage to MSFT, Apple, etc.
Ideally, we would just reform patent law to mitigate this but outside of that, I think it makes sense for companies to incentivize their workers to file patents "defensively".
When I said "pay attention to this because it is your future" I was specifically thinking about Google. I basically guarantee that somewhere down the road Google will abandon their "only for defensive purposes" stance.
What makes you think this won't happen with Google?
They have a very valuable patent portfolio, and there is a very high likelihood that Google will at some point experience problems similar to Yahoo, Microsoft, Kodak, etc.
Once that happens, shareholders will be clamoring for that asset to be put to use - if management hasn't already done so to prop earnings up.
And that's why it's so pervasive - the only practical defense to patent lawsuits is building up your own portfolio of patents for defensive purposes. But, since it is highly likely that your company will face situations that require you to utilize that portfolio in an offensive way, your previously defensive patents will require other companies to acquire their own 'defensive' patents. Ad infinitum.
Google sometimes attaches patent licenses for non-aggressors for code they've open-sourced (see: WebM). That ties the hands of a future management: the relevant patents are only useful defensively. Anyone not suing Google (or a downstream user of Google's code) for patent infringement related to that code can take advantage of the freely available patent license.
Of course, they're not doing that for everything (e.g. PageRank patents), but to the extent that they do this for the patents they intend to use defensively, they might avoid this problem.
On the other hand, when the question you're facing is the existence of your company or your product at your company, that decision is a lot harder than "might this patent be used unethically in the future?"
I think James Gosling has a blog post about the huge number of defensive patents they started filing at Sun after losing some lawsuits over low-quality patents to make sure they would be protected in the future. Now all of those patents are owned by Oracle.
Of course, if Sun had been more successful, those patents might still be a net positive in the market, so it really isn't that simple. I do agree that the market incentives for companies are perverse (in terms of the constitutional purpose of patents), which is exactly why software patents desperately need reform.
Incidentally, Red Hat is a good example of an actively anti-software-patent company with a number of patents. It's unlikely that their policies will change, but it is possible. I don't, however, think it's a net negative when Red Hat employees file for them in the system we are unfortunately stuck with.
Ya, we basically agree. The whole system has awful incentives and is in desperate need of reform. Unfortunately I don't see that happening anytime soon. One can certainly hope though!
It is very, very common to wait until just before an IPO to sue. The strategy is that the defendant will be more willing to settle just to get the lawsuit off the books before the IPO. It usually works against smaller companies.
Google was the recipient of borderline frivolous legal action just before the IPO, but Google didn't bite. In the case of Facebook, I don't expect anything to be resolved pre-IPO, as Facebook has the momentum to deflect nearly anything at this point.
What's really irritating is that it was Yahoo who sued Google before their IPO. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.
I don't think Facebook is going to stand for this. Obviously, I don't have access to Yahoo's patent portfolios, but it just seems frivolous. If they actually had a case it seems they would've sued a long time ago.
And Google did bite. I read they gave up some 2.7 million shares to Yahoo. It worked once for them, so it looks like they're trying it again.
As an ex-employee of Yahoo, I find this sad and disappointing. Also - unnecessary. Yahoo still has great people, great userbase and great tech. No good can come out of this long term.
What do you think is going on in the minds of its current employees?
Do you think employees are making plans for an exodus?
Also, as I recall, wasn't there a senior exec that left recently upon Thompson's new appointment as CEO. Perhaps he saw this coming and thought similarly?
Several execs have left. I think people at Yahoo have made peace with the situation or have a strong reason for staying there. I know some people who are there because they feel that the tech/scale they work on won't be possible at any other company. Others because they just like the team/people they hang out with, etc.
So no, I don't expect an exodus because of this. I do think that this will cause major hiring issues, even more than before. Not because employees have a moral stance against patents but this move signals desperation. Folks can 'smell' that this is different than when Apple uses patents offensively and that this isn't something a healthy company should do.
> I think people at Yahoo have made peace with the situation or have a strong reason for staying there.
I've said it before, but I'll say it again: The ones with a "strong reason" to stay at Yahoo would be those on H1B work visas in the green card sponsorship queue. Because if they find a job elsewhere, the whole process restarts. A strong reason, sure, but IMO not a good reason to stay.
Current Yahoo here. I love working for Yahoo. Fun & unique challenges to solve, compensated well, and is a nice environment.
Think what you will, but there are plenty more that are like me. My current team is full of some of the best people in the industry at what they do and the average tenure of them at Y! is ~6 years. So, there's plenty of very talented people left at Yahoo who are here because they want to be.
Jobs's biography makes clear that Jobs wanted to burn Android to the ground. Most of the recent Apple lawsuits seem to stem from that. That's very different motivation than...
"We're a weak company. What can we do?"
"Let's use our patents to sue people."
I'm not saying that Apple isn't weak. I think they are, with Jobs gone. However, even if it's as bad as I think, the flailing lawsuits will take a while to materialize. First the stock has to tank. Right now shareholders are salivating over potential dividends.
One of the signs of a tech company's last gasp is "leveraging its patent portfolio", a/k/a, suing everyone in sight.
From what I understand of the Apple/Android instance, Jobs felt personally betrayed by Eric Schmidt, who was apparently privy to advance information about the iPhone when Google began its Android pursuits.
Given the iPhone release in June, 2007, and Google's acquisition of Android in August, 2005, the timing might be indicative. Then again, the first release of the iPhone was in 1993 (the Newton). I still remember encountering my first one of those and wondering why I'd ever want one.... By 2005-6, the time of the mobile+PDA had truly come, IMO. Not that Schmidt couldn't have picked up some tips from Apple. Much as Apple once did from Xerox....
What if instead of suing Facebook, Yahoo proposed to Facebook a greater partnership and deeper integration of its products with the social layer?
What if Yahoo Mail and Yahoo News now had an advanced social layer that managed contacts autonomously (like GMail) and becomes official curator of news on a social level? (Not like, here's a lot of news, and then a commentary section. I'm talking a brief abstract with link of rest of article and just a ton of commentary)
That would actually make me consider leaving GMail (Really). And for once I would give a dang about the things being posted in my feed, rather than filtering out the majority of my contacts and likes.
The last thing I would be interested in is the husk of Yahoo imbued with facbook/social anything powered by bing search.
I've been here a long time - and I havent visited a yahoo site/page for probably 6 or 7 years.
I let my @yahoo.com mail die years ago and never went back.
Sorry for anyone who still likes Yahoo - I just find them completely irrelevant.
I stated several times on HN that if they had any wisdom - they would go on an investment spree in the valley. However, they are taking the opposite approach and going trolling.
Hadoop was developed by Doug Cutting while he was working at Yahoo. I think it skews the reality of the situation to focus solely on the public facing pieces of Yahoo (as a home page, as an email service), which kicked the bucket a long time ago. On that front Yahoo has been irrelevant for > 6 years, but their advertising business and their software engineering R&D department continued on after that.
Definitely a sign that Yahoo stopped getting profit from doing anything useful, since they fell so low as to use software patents litigations for their income.
Apple and Microsoft are notorious software patent aggressors who consider patent protection racket an acceptable "business practice". Google on the other hand tries to avoid anything of that sort, and uses patents only for defense against patent aggressors. At least Google used to up until latest Motorola acquisition which mixed their policy up. Didn't really look into what Samsung is doing in detail, but they usually just fight back (for example to Apple) as defense, and don't act as aggressors.
Yahoo didn't engage in software patent aggression before. So whatever the case, acting as a software patent aggressor shows deterioration of company ethics and usually signals that they can't compete on merit.
Definitely a sign of desperation. I imagine, stale board room meetings, lackluster performance in product development and an anxious board. Scott Thompson took this for a red flag and called it for what it is, a sinking ship.
Except this lacks in both grace and providing the company with any innovative, competitive, long term solutions, and definitely sets it in a bad light. I don't see any benefit to doing this.
There are benefits to expunging any good will you have in a community, reaping what short term profit is available then going into liquidation.
Maybe yahoo is pursing this goal.... with their schizophrenic product line (they once had two competing photo sharing sites under their banner and three social networks), I can imagine that they are worth more as separate parts than as a single undirected company.
Or... they can organize themselves as a traditional conglomerate.
Three signs (flickr fiasco, massive job cuts, now patent trolling) so far, of possible buyout... either by a good-willed or malignant purchaser, depending on how Yahoo management play their cards.
These are good moves only in the short-term. Either Yahoo is flailing, or it's setting itself up for sale. Lots of good folks who work there (some of whom I know well)... I hope they're prepared.
I couldn't disagree more with the linkage some have between companies only using patents "defensively" and/or financially rewarding employees to file patents. The two are unrelated.
Yahoo is dying. It has been for some time, arguably the better part of a decade. At some point all such companies end up in hands of management and/or a board who simply want to extract every last dime. Much like how some dying stars go supernova, large dying companies often explode in a conflagration of litigation. We saw it with SCO. Now it's Yahoo's turn (apparently).
But to argue that this is a product of acquiring patents is ridiculous. Not doing so will do nothing but hasten your demise. Software patents are ridiculous and should be declared invalid (wholesale) but until that happens, that's the system we live in.
If anything, the more ridiculous patent lawsuits we have, the more it hastens the onset of commonsense and (hopefully meaningful) patent reform.
Only harryh's comment is mentioning that link, so I don't know why you didn't address that point in a reply.
But I think your disagreement is misaimed. I don't see that comment as implying a correlation between aggression and employee rewards. Rather it's saying that all companies eventually aggress with patents, and because of this you can never use claims to the contrary as moral justification for your patent bonus.
You're wrong about yahoo "dying". They've increased revenue by about 800% and earnings by 1000% in that decade of death you're referring to.
As for "Yahoo the search engine" - that certainly seems to be a lost cause, but Yahoo has built a substantial business over the course of the last decade. Assets such as their Fantasy Sports, Yahoo Finance, and Flickr are thriving - not to mention their stake in Alibaba.
Yahoo is currently hitting a $5 billion per year sales rate.
Sales for fiscal 2005 were $5.3 billion.
Yes, they're obviously a rocket ship of growth.
They're rotting. Worse than their 7 years of stagnation (let's not even inflation adjust for the comparison), is that their leadership is completely non-existent; they have no category killers that are banging out the growth and profits; they no longer produce big innovative products; their core as a portal is eroding; their dominance in display advertising has been eclipsed.
"A rocket ship of growth" and dying are two very different things.
...and I agree on the leadership issues.
I'm not saying they're perfect, I'm not even saying I agree with their actions in this case - I definitely don't. What I am saying is maintaining/growing (depending on your sample range) revenues and increasing earnings through a global recession isn't dying.
An alternative process to fix the problem would be to pressure supposed "defensive only" companies to put that promise in writing by offering universal defensive-only patent grants akin to the GPL. Named inventors could even push that change at their own company, in exchange for going on record that their implementation actually counts as an 'invention'.
To fix this problem, software patents need to be abolished as a practice damaging for society and innovation. While they exists, they'll be abused by trolls.
I certainly don't disagree - I was just addressing the specific problem of companies convincing themselves/employees that their patents are only for 'defensive purposes', and then suffering a change of priorities. If the company legally commits to defensive-only use, then there can be no change of heart later; as such, employees that take issue with supporting a given patent as a bona fide invention should push for such a committal rather than relying on non-binding promises.
That's true. In some cases this happens, for example members of OIN have legal obligations not to use patents against each other at least. But I'm not sure there is any company that took a solid legal obligation not to be a patent aggressor in general.
Royalty payments? Can someone chime in here on the difference between the royalties Facebook is paying Yahoo versus what fees they want recompensed the lawsuit?
From the article "The company adds that Facebook has been “free riding” on Yahoo’s intellectual property and that royalty payments alone will not suffice."
Isn't there a contract drawn up for a company to pay another company money (i.e. royalties) so that they can't litigate against one another? It just sounds like Yahoo had undervalued or misconstrued how Facebook was going to use their patent tech.
What a disappointing step for Y!'s new CEO to take.
Yahoo! is a media company, Facebook is a networking/platform company. They should be looking for ways to work together and build value instead of attacking each other and destroying it.
To me, this just looks like a complete waste of Yahoo's time and an incredibly silly way for Yahoo's new CEO to be investing his resources - they have so many problems on so many fronts and the last thing they need to do is draw themselves into another battle.
Isn't Apple alive today partly because of a patent lawsuit with MS that they were going to loose? A I understand the story, in a twist of things, Jobs convinced Gates to invest over a hundred million in Apple, thereby saving the company.
I believe that Jobs told Gates that Apple would likely win the lawsuit, but it would probably completely destroy Apple and seriously damage Microsoft. That's how I understood the story in the Steve Jobs biography anway.
Maybe I'm off my rocker here, but this sounds like "suing your way into being acquired".
Is Facebook buying Yahoo not something Yahoo probably wants at this point?
Yes, I'm sure there's lots of reasons this might be a bad match- I didn't say I thought yahoo thought it was a good match. Yahoo might be really expensive (even today) for FB to buy. But it just smells that way to me.
Facebook usually does the acquire/hire thing, often without purchasing the companies' actual products, which means they're integrating the acquired devs. Yahoo has 4x the number of employees of facebook (where would they go?) and a number of products that would be totally new for Facebook. They would probably have to be run as they are now, by mostly the same org structure, which isn't at all like the more organic growth that Facebook has chosen so far.
Yahoo also manages a lot of content and editorial work, which is not in business units that would matter to facebook, and would be ripe for disinvestment.
>They would probably have to be run as they are now, by mostly the same org structure, which isn't at all like the more organic growth that Facebook has chosen so far.
Maybe with a partnership, or alone Microsoft. They tried it before, a buyout with premium would be around 25B i assume.
Facebook is strategic important for MS, so it would make sense to sue them.
The patent system is broken, but at least this time it is a company that deserves litigation instead of some poor indie app dev. IMO Facebook is pretty high up on the list of companies with horrible policies, it's bittersweet to see such stupid litigiousness with them as the target.
Do you work for a company that gives bonuses for filing patents? Do you use the "only for defensive purposes" assurances as a way to soothe your troubled soul when you take the money? If so, pay attention to this times two.