Alphabet's Google violated a software developer's patent rights with its remote-streaming technology and must pay $338.7 million in damages, a federal jury in Waco, Texas decided on Friday.
    • The Cuuuuube@beehaw.org
      33·
      1 year ago

      Quite literally the opposite of patent trolling. The company invented something. Acquired a patent. Tried to sell a license to google. Google left the negotiating table. And then not long after introduced a product that fulfilled all of the requirements to be protected by the patent licensing they hadn’t paid for.

      I hate patent trolls. These are not patent trolls. These are people the patent system is meant to protect. These are people who developed a product and wanted compensation for all the time and money they spent developing it. And they got it 10 years later, and probably didn’t get as much total as they could have if Google hadn’t fucked them over

      • WagnasT@iusearchlinux.fyi
        18·
        1 year ago

        So they ‘invented’ moving video from a small device to a large device in 2010? That’s a dumb patent and they are trolls. I hate google, but patents like that are stupidly vague and stifle progress.

        • conciselyverbose@kbin.social
          15·
          1 year ago

          Exactly. That’s not an invention, and “using” your absurdly uninnovative idea that no intelligent person could possibly consider granting a patent for doesn’t make you not a patent troll.

      • klangcola@reddthat.com
        17·
        1 year ago

        Depends on what exactly was covered in the patent. The article only says

        invented technology in 2010 to “move” videos from a small device like a smartphone to a larger device like a television.

        Which is vague and an obvious bogus patent. Prior art exists in both the digital and analogue space

          • klangcola@reddthat.com
            4·
            1 year ago

            After looking at the patent it’s clear it’s way too vague, generic and obvious. It should never have been granted. (I Am Not A patent Lawyer). For one the XMBC web interface from 2009ish is prior art.

            Technically the Kodi remote control app would be in violation of the patent, except it doesn’t use any “back end server system”.

            If you replace the words “display” and “video” with “speaker” and “audio” then the Spotify app would be in violation as well, as it allows changing the playback device to any of your logged in devices.

            Come to think of it, if you use Firefox on mobile to access YouTube, then “send tab to other device”, and send it to a desktop computer connected to a big screen, it could be interpreted as violating the patent as it’s using Mozilla’s “back end server” to relay the message

      • fonix232@kbin.social
        10·
        1 year ago

        “Made a technology”

        Did they actually make anything, or did the CEO just patent an idea without ever putting it in production?

        Because latter would be the textbook description of patent trolls. An idea is just an idea, if you can’t execute it, the patent should be null and void.

        On another note I have to say that such an obvious solution of “moving content from a small screen to the big screen” should hardly be patentable. It’s quite literally just RPC, which has been in use in various shapes and forms for over 60 years.

              • conciselyverbose@kbin.social
                8·
                1 year ago

                No, it’s not unique or novel in any way.

                That entire patent is technobabble that means “send content to a display”. There is nothing about it that’s in any way innovative or that it’s even possible that they were one of the first 1000 people on the planet to think of.

                The entire premise of allowing people to “invent” extremely obvious, extremely simply things is an obscenely broken system. Submitting a patent application for this shouldn’t just get rejected. It should get you permanently barred from ever being able to submit or own a patent until the end of time.

    • sadreality@kbin.social
      4·
      1 year ago

      Big tech are biggest trolls out there.

      Are they still trying to patent a rectangular screen? Or pinch to zoom?

  • Scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech
    20·
    1 year ago

    Google spokesperson Jose Castaneda said on Monday that the company will appeal the verdict and has “always developed technology independently and competed on the merits of our ideas.”

    Bull. Good for them, glad the small guy won out, hopefully it doesn’t get overturned on appeals. Google/Microsoft/Amazon/Apple have always stolen IP once they got big enough, usually with the hopes of either A) buying the little guy out or B) running them out of business. Glad the little guy one out for once.