back to article Google: Hey startups, want in on our patent gang? First hit's free

Google is looking to recruit 50 startups to participate in its patent licensing network. The Mountain View ad giant said its Patent Starter Program would offer startups free Google Patents as well as the ability to view Google's entire portfolio with the option of acquiring further patents. In exchange, the startups will be …

  1. Bob Dole (tm)
    Thumb Up

    Keep it up

    This is the way to fix software patents - by making them completely irrelevant. Get everyone to sign a "we won't sue you" deal and just move on.

    Kudos for the first step. Can't wait to see what the next step is.

    1. Steve Knox
      Thumb Down

      Re: Keep it up

      No, this is more like "we won't sue you as long as you pay us money to be in our club."

      Kind of the software patent version of "Nice shop here. Be a shame if something were to happen to it."

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    How is this protection against patent trolls?

    The whole point of being a patent troll is that you own patents and can extort companies who use them (or are worried that an East Texas jury will think use) with zero worries about your target coming back at you with patents you use - since you make no products.

    It doesn't matter if you are using a company that has 100 patents or a company that is part of a network that contains 100,000 patents. The only "protection" offered here is if someone else in the network goes belly up and their patents get in the hands of a troll they can't use those particular patents to troll you. Unfortunately there's a near endless supply of patents for trolls to get their hands on, so it is like going to the store and buying up all the bullets, hoping that means I can't shoot you but ignoring the fact there's a store the next town over, and the next one after that...

    1. Charlie Clark Silver badge

      Re: How is this protection against patent trolls?

      The protection against trolls works in two ways: firstly, the pool will be able to act for any member that is challenged (think of Microsoft's dubious cases about FAT); secondly, over time the patents of companies that join will not become available to trolls for future abuse because they're already cross-licensed.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: How is this protection against patent trolls?

        Microsoft isn't a patent troll, not by the true definition, because they make products. Therefore having patents of your own is protection against them.

        Having patents of your own is useless against a patent troll - a company that owns patents, employs only lawyers, and produces no products.

        1. Charlie Clark Silver badge
          Thumb Down

          Re: How is this protection against patent trolls?

          Microsoft isn't a patent troll, not by the true definition

          What is the true definition? I'd define a patent troll as anyone attempting to use patents to prevent innovation, which is the opposite of what they're supposed to be for. Unisys' waving of the LZW patent falls into this category along with Microsoft's always out-of-court settlements about FAT and Apple's "rubber band" patent.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: How is this protection against patent trolls?

            While Unisys trying to make a money grab for use of GIFs was stupid, how did that "prevent innovation"? If anything it caused innovation, because it directly led to the creation of the PNG format, and motivated web developers to move to JPEG more quickly than they otherwise would have.

            In fact that's the case with your Apple example too. Apple didn't patent all ways of letting people know they'd reach the end of the scrollable range, but only the one way they used. There are many other possible ways, like flashing the screen, making a sound, animating the edge of the page scrunching up and so forth. Your Microsoft example is more problematic, since the only reason anyone ever wanted to use FAT with long names was for compatibility with Microsoft's products. That's really more of a situation created by their desktop monopoly than a patent issue, IMHO.

  3. Trollslayer

    Give the family jewels to the big boys

    Rather than sell them?

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    To enter the program, startups must have 2014 revenues between $500,000 and $20,000,000.

    So to quality, they need to be an established business with very healthy revenues.

    Yeah, that's how I'd define a start-up.

    1. Charlie Clark Silver badge

      Revenues of $500,000 would imply a workforce of less than 10 people. That seems a reasonable definition of a startup to me.

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