You might want to look into their page rank patent.
They licensed it from Stanford university, they do not own it neither would they patent their algorithms because being secret offers them more protection than documenting it, in their case/opinion.
Why would there be any innovation if the results were not able to be protected from the likes of Google and Microsoft who would simply reverse engineer everything and steal them. Heck even with patents Microsoft reverse engineered Mac OS and Quicktime for their own use. Both cases proved in court btw before anyone argues ... and settled between Apple and MS thanks to patents.
Patent trolls and the East Texas courts give patents a bad name but we should not lose sight of the legitimate rights of inventors to protect their IP.
Make no mistake -- what MPEG-LA is doing here is EXACTLY patent trolling. Their explicit goal is to find people who could arguably say Google is infringing on their patents -- patents which were not intentionally infringed on as no one seems to know about them yet. Once they identify these patents, they WILL be demanding Google and anyone else who uses WebM pay them money.
This is textbook patent trolling, and everyone -- no matter how you stand on Apple vs Google -- should be opposed to this. The only people who lose here are consumers.
I'm a professional commercial software developer, working in a field that's heavily using multi-touch interaction. The whole patent situation is an absolute nightmare. We continue to develop software with simple, common sense interfaces only to have Legal come back to us and tell us we need to redesign it to be less intuitive and functional because Google/Apple/Microsoft/Palm/small company has this rather common sense thing patented. It's frustrating, and the consumer loses out 100% of the time.
This kind of patent trolling makes me furious. It's a cartel trying to force everyone to use their technology, or abuse the patent system to make the other technologies still pay them either way.
The worst part of this is it forces everyone to play the game. I've got several patents under my name (for my company), because every little thing we implement we must patent to prevent someone else from patenting it later and suing us over it.
You wonder why people on these boards would have a different attitude between claims against Google and claims against Apple? Because they are usually qualitatively different in nature. Sure, there will be some people that come out and accuse Apple of this or that, but Apple definitely works hard, develops most of its own technologies and can show a long and consistent process of development over the years. It has a track record of a pretty good work ethic.
Take one of the recent suits: Apple gets sued, a long with a bunch of others, for the way music is listed hierarchically in it's music library in iTunes. But everyone believes this is a junk patent because it is simply logical and self-evident that anyone would organise a song by Artist, Album and song name. What else can you do?
In contrast, the technological way that the iPod scrolls the list seamlessly and effortlessly according to the swipe applied with your finger and showing inertia that slows it down like a physical thing... That is completely Apple's own doing and rightly should be defended against copiers.
I think you've got a rosy picture of Apple vs the rest of the world. Apple has filed complaints against my company based on MANY things you would classify as "junk patents". Did you know Apple has a patent for providing user feedback when trying to zoom out too much and the software hits a limit? We tried to add feedback to our app so when we hit the max zoom level, it respected the physical metaphor we were using of stretching something in real life -- when it hits its max stretch level, it stretches out just a little then comes back to the max level. It's very obvious, very intuitive behaviour that Apple has patented. We got a letter soon after shipping software with that functionality from Apple proclaiming they have patented it and wanted to set up some negotiations. Instead, we changed the software to get around it, so now the user doesn't get any feedback when they zoom out too much.
One simple example of MANY we've had to deal with. ALL companies have junk patents, ALL companies enforce them. Apple is no different.
MPEGLA may never charge anyone but the largest of groups any fees, just as it is today.
They charge everyone as it is today.
If you buy Windows 7 or Mac OS X, you're paying MPEG-LA. You just don't realize it. Buy a DVD player, you're paying MPEG-LA. Buy a Bluray player, you're paying MPEG-LA. Buy an iPod or iPhone, you're paying MPEG-LA.
How they can boast about it being an open standard when they refuse to include Safari and IE in their releases. Am I missing a download page?
I don't understand...
Safari and IE are intentionally not including WebM support in their browser.
Safari uses QuickTime for video and IE uses DirectShow for video -- if you install the WebM plugin for these systemwide (which Google has or will make available), they will play in Safari and IE.
The only codec that will not have any way of playing in all browsers will be h264...
Why should I imagine mathematic formulas as patentable when they are not? Imagine mother's milk as being poison and that most of us would be dead and not living in your caves. Is either imagined scenario relevant to the the topic? I think not.
this point proves software patents do not affect the rate of innovation. Mathematics is the foundation of all computers...hardware and software. If mathematics were patented, there would be no modern civilization. Glad you agree.
Quote:
Of course I have heard about trademarks and copyrights. I am not an expert on either one and I don't profess to be but I do know that they are not the same as a patent. Our patent rules may be too general in many ways but need revision not abolition. Software patent protection is necessary.
can you give one example of a "good" software patent? I have given you a clear example of mathematics showing how having no patents have led to rapid innovation and competition in basically every field imaginable. With no patents, somehow we have the technology we have today. Imagine that...
Quote:
I also disagree with you on greed because I believe that almost everyone (if not all people's) motive is greed based with the only difference being each individual's level of greed. You may call it whatever you want, to make it more palatable, but when all is said and done all it turns out to be is just a different level of greed.
that is exactly how someone blinded by greed sees it. I develop open source software (over 1500 downloads last week) and license it under the GPL. Explain what my greed is?
They licensed it from Stanford university, they do not own it neither would they patent their algorithms because being secret offers them more protection than documenting it, in their case/opinion.
You're being disingenuous.
Larry Page patented it while at Stanford, so Stanford does technically own the patent. However, Google is the practical owner of the patent as they have perpetual exclusivity to the patent. It is, for all intents and purposes, Google's patent.
If you buy Windows 7 or Mac OS X, you're paying MPEG-LA. You just don't realize it. Buy a DVD player, you're paying MPEG-LA. Buy a Bluray player, you're paying MPEG-LA. Buy an iPod or iPhone, you're paying MPEG-LA.
I happily pay those cents per device to enable innovation.
Larry Page patented it while at Stanford, so Stanford does technically own the patent. However, Google is the practical owner of the patent as they have perpetual exclusivity to the patent. It is, for all intents and purposes, Google's patent.
I happily pay those cents per device to enable innovation.
You're not enabling innovation by paying the cost. Innovation occurs irrespective of patents. Patents are just a way to make money and control software, they do not encourage innovation.
I can't think of a single company that would stop innovating if there were no patents. There's tremendous incentive to innovate -- sales, market position, and brand image.
Personally, patents have prevented me from innovating. I've implemented lots of cool things in the software I develop, and had to remove them because part of it infringes on some vague patent some big company, or some troll company, owns.
They still had to pay for it with shares of stock, and that still doesn't prove the point that the rest of their algorithms are patented.
I'm sorry, but what is your point?
Yes, Google offered stock to Stanford to become the exclusive owner of a patent that Stanford owns that was invented by Larry Page while at Stanford. So what?
As for your other point, why would I address it? It's a pointless argument, and has no bearing on anything.
Yes, Google offered stock to Stanford to become the exclusive owner of a patent that Stanford owns that was invented by Larry Page while at Stanford. So what?
As for your other point, why would I address it? It's a pointless argument, and has no bearing on anything.
You aren't the OP who brought up that point. The reason why it was brought up was the whole "hypocritical" aspect of google complaining about bing.
Actually, Bing was wasn't using google algorithms, they were actually copying Google results - Google planted random words and links into the search engine which had nothing to do with the algorithm, and caught Bing basically using Google to create search results. Big difference.
That's not what happened at all. Microsoft was using click-throughs, generally, as data to feed into their relevancy algorithms, and Google fed them bogus data on nonsense terms. The fact that most of the bogus search data Google fed them did not end up in Bing's results shows that they are not actually copying results. It's a huge difference in what they are doing that was hugely, and (beyond any doubt) knowingly misrepresented by Google.
How they can boast about it being an open standard when they refuse to include Safari and IE in their releases. Am I missing a download page?
You're not missing anything.
Q: How do you tell a Google executive is lying?
A: His lips are moving.
Quote:
Originally Posted by tjw
Are you really that ill informed? You have just picked the biggest commercial software and stated therefore open source is a tiny fraction.
Are you so stupid not to know that the majority of software that websites run on is open source. Apache dwarf MS in this space. Even the Mac OSX kernel is based an a fork of freeBSD, an open source *UNIX* system.
Apple's webkit browser engine is open source for god sake. I bet you use more open source software every day than you do commercial shit.
That's total bull.
First, your example is wrong. I use Safari - which is based on webkit. Safari is proprietary. Just like all the other browsers based on Webkit.
Second, we were talking about user space - where proprietary software outnumbers 'open' software many fold. Yes, for servers, open source is common, but still doesn't greatly outnumber proprietary software.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Asherian
Make no mistake -- what MPEG-LA is doing here is EXACTLY patent trolling. Their explicit goal is to find people who could arguably say Google is infringing on their patents -- patents which were not intentionally infringed on as no one seems to know about them yet. Once they identify these patents, they WILL be demanding Google and anyone else who uses WebM pay them money.
This is textbook patent trolling, and everyone -- no matter how you stand on Apple vs Google -- should be opposed to this. The only people who lose here are consumers.
Nonsense - it's not patent trolling at all. MPEG-LA is responsible for licensing a wide range of patents and codecs. That's their business. As part of that business they have the right to enforce their patents and find infringers.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Asherian
You're not enabling innovation by paying the cost. Innovation occurs irrespective of patents. Patents are just a way to make money and control software, they do not encourage innovation..
Obviously coming from someone who has never created anything of value.
We live in a free market society. People create things so that they can profit from them. If you remove the profit motive, the incentive for creation drops dramatically. There would be VASTLY less innovation if people couldn't profit from them. Patents help to ensure that people can profit from their innovations.
Actually, Bing was wasn't using google algorithms, they were actually copying Google results - Google planted random words and links into the search engine which had nothing to do with the algorithm, and caught Bing basically using Google to create search results. Big difference.
So what?
Aren't Google "open", can't anyone do whatever they want with their search results?
They licensed it from Stanford university, they do not own it neither would they patent their algorithms because being secret offers them more protection than documenting it, in their case/opinion.
It's a joint Patent because they earned that research as Graduate Students while at Stanford.
I happily pay those cents per device to enable innovation.
And quality, OGG and WebM are horrible, I as a web designer cringe at the thought that my well crafted videos are only being served by those two codecs I would pay extra, myself, to be able to use H.264 (exclusively) and well, I do pay for it anyway since I do own at least five Apple devices and soon to get more. You get what you pay for, I have worked with php solutions for years now and I pay developers gladly for the php shopping carts, or CMS programs. Sure you can get semi-free crap coded in China, but that is what you have, semi-free or cheap crap from China so you spend your precious time to troubleshoot so it will function (maybe).
No, so over it. Just freakin' pay for it, (unless it is Adobe overpriced crap, always on the look out for alternatives for that!)
That said I still have to waste my time to encode a video three times so I can serve it up as html5, it is a major pain, but dealing with Flash is even worse, so I just do it. But I would never, ever, ever, ever, ever, want H264 off the table. In case I wasn't clear, I mean EVER!
Google will beat Apple in this area too - the most sued company of all time. With Oracle and MPEG LA clamping on them this decade will see Google beefing up its legal team to new heights. Apple took that reign from Microsoft and now Google is next.
Comments
Um. They methods are certainly patented.
You might want to look into their page rank patent.
They licensed it from Stanford university, they do not own it neither would they patent their algorithms because being secret offers them more protection than documenting it, in their case/opinion.
Why would there be any innovation if the results were not able to be protected from the likes of Google and Microsoft who would simply reverse engineer everything and steal them. Heck even with patents Microsoft reverse engineered Mac OS and Quicktime for their own use. Both cases proved in court btw before anyone argues ... and settled between Apple and MS thanks to patents.
Patent trolls and the East Texas courts give patents a bad name but we should not lose sight of the legitimate rights of inventors to protect their IP.
Make no mistake -- what MPEG-LA is doing here is EXACTLY patent trolling. Their explicit goal is to find people who could arguably say Google is infringing on their patents -- patents which were not intentionally infringed on as no one seems to know about them yet. Once they identify these patents, they WILL be demanding Google and anyone else who uses WebM pay them money.
This is textbook patent trolling, and everyone -- no matter how you stand on Apple vs Google -- should be opposed to this. The only people who lose here are consumers.
I'm a professional commercial software developer, working in a field that's heavily using multi-touch interaction. The whole patent situation is an absolute nightmare. We continue to develop software with simple, common sense interfaces only to have Legal come back to us and tell us we need to redesign it to be less intuitive and functional because Google/Apple/Microsoft/Palm/small company has this rather common sense thing patented. It's frustrating, and the consumer loses out 100% of the time.
This kind of patent trolling makes me furious. It's a cartel trying to force everyone to use their technology, or abuse the patent system to make the other technologies still pay them either way.
The worst part of this is it forces everyone to play the game. I've got several patents under my name (for my company), because every little thing we implement we must patent to prevent someone else from patenting it later and suing us over it.
You wonder why people on these boards would have a different attitude between claims against Google and claims against Apple? Because they are usually qualitatively different in nature. Sure, there will be some people that come out and accuse Apple of this or that, but Apple definitely works hard, develops most of its own technologies and can show a long and consistent process of development over the years. It has a track record of a pretty good work ethic.
Take one of the recent suits: Apple gets sued, a long with a bunch of others, for the way music is listed hierarchically in it's music library in iTunes. But everyone believes this is a junk patent because it is simply logical and self-evident that anyone would organise a song by Artist, Album and song name. What else can you do?
In contrast, the technological way that the iPod scrolls the list seamlessly and effortlessly according to the swipe applied with your finger and showing inertia that slows it down like a physical thing... That is completely Apple's own doing and rightly should be defended against copiers.
I think you've got a rosy picture of Apple vs the rest of the world. Apple has filed complaints against my company based on MANY things you would classify as "junk patents". Did you know Apple has a patent for providing user feedback when trying to zoom out too much and the software hits a limit? We tried to add feedback to our app so when we hit the max zoom level, it respected the physical metaphor we were using of stretching something in real life -- when it hits its max stretch level, it stretches out just a little then comes back to the max level. It's very obvious, very intuitive behaviour that Apple has patented. We got a letter soon after shipping software with that functionality from Apple proclaiming they have patented it and wanted to set up some negotiations. Instead, we changed the software to get around it, so now the user doesn't get any feedback when they zoom out too much.
One simple example of MANY we've had to deal with. ALL companies have junk patents, ALL companies enforce them. Apple is no different.
MPEGLA may never charge anyone but the largest of groups any fees, just as it is today.
They charge everyone as it is today.
If you buy Windows 7 or Mac OS X, you're paying MPEG-LA. You just don't realize it. Buy a DVD player, you're paying MPEG-LA. Buy a Bluray player, you're paying MPEG-LA. Buy an iPod or iPhone, you're paying MPEG-LA.
How they can boast about it being an open standard when they refuse to include Safari and IE in their releases. Am I missing a download page?
I don't understand...
Safari and IE are intentionally not including WebM support in their browser.
Safari uses QuickTime for video and IE uses DirectShow for video -- if you install the WebM plugin for these systemwide (which Google has or will make available), they will play in Safari and IE.
The only codec that will not have any way of playing in all browsers will be h264...
hmmm, 'bullhead' very appropriate.
Why should I imagine mathematic formulas as patentable when they are not? Imagine mother's milk as being poison and that most of us would be dead and not living in your caves. Is either imagined scenario relevant to the the topic? I think not.
this point proves software patents do not affect the rate of innovation. Mathematics is the foundation of all computers...hardware and software. If mathematics were patented, there would be no modern civilization. Glad you agree.
Of course I have heard about trademarks and copyrights. I am not an expert on either one and I don't profess to be but I do know that they are not the same as a patent. Our patent rules may be too general in many ways but need revision not abolition. Software patent protection is necessary.
can you give one example of a "good" software patent? I have given you a clear example of mathematics showing how having no patents have led to rapid innovation and competition in basically every field imaginable. With no patents, somehow we have the technology we have today. Imagine that...
I also disagree with you on greed because I believe that almost everyone (if not all people's) motive is greed based with the only difference being each individual's level of greed. You may call it whatever you want, to make it more palatable, but when all is said and done all it turns out to be is just a different level of greed.
that is exactly how someone blinded by greed sees it. I develop open source software (over 1500 downloads last week) and license it under the GPL. Explain what my greed is?
They licensed it from Stanford university, they do not own it neither would they patent their algorithms because being secret offers them more protection than documenting it, in their case/opinion.
You're being disingenuous.
Larry Page patented it while at Stanford, so Stanford does technically own the patent. However, Google is the practical owner of the patent as they have perpetual exclusivity to the patent. It is, for all intents and purposes, Google's patent.
http://www.google.com/patents?vid=6285999
They charge everyone as it is today.
If you buy Windows 7 or Mac OS X, you're paying MPEG-LA. You just don't realize it. Buy a DVD player, you're paying MPEG-LA. Buy a Bluray player, you're paying MPEG-LA. Buy an iPod or iPhone, you're paying MPEG-LA.
I happily pay those cents per device to enable innovation.
You're being disingenuous.
Larry Page patented it while at Stanford, so Stanford does technically own the patent. However, Google is the practical owner of the patent as they have perpetual exclusivity to the patent. It is, for all intents and purposes, Google's patent.
http://www.google.com/patents?vid=6285999
They still had to pay for it with shares of stock, and that still doesn't prove the point that the rest of their algorithms are patented.
I happily pay those cents per device to enable innovation.
You're not enabling innovation by paying the cost. Innovation occurs irrespective of patents. Patents are just a way to make money and control software, they do not encourage innovation.
I can't think of a single company that would stop innovating if there were no patents. There's tremendous incentive to innovate -- sales, market position, and brand image.
Personally, patents have prevented me from innovating. I've implemented lots of cool things in the software I develop, and had to remove them because part of it infringes on some vague patent some big company, or some troll company, owns.
They still had to pay for it with shares of stock, and that still doesn't prove the point that the rest of their algorithms are patented.
I'm sorry, but what is your point?
Yes, Google offered stock to Stanford to become the exclusive owner of a patent that Stanford owns that was invented by Larry Page while at Stanford. So what?
As for your other point, why would I address it? It's a pointless argument, and has no bearing on anything.
How the fuck is that useful for stimulating innovation?
I'm sorry, but what is your point?
Yes, Google offered stock to Stanford to become the exclusive owner of a patent that Stanford owns that was invented by Larry Page while at Stanford. So what?
As for your other point, why would I address it? It's a pointless argument, and has no bearing on anything.
You aren't the OP who brought up that point. The reason why it was brought up was the whole "hypocritical" aspect of google complaining about bing.
Or have you read page one of this thread?
Actually, Bing was wasn't using google algorithms, they were actually copying Google results - Google planted random words and links into the search engine which had nothing to do with the algorithm, and caught Bing basically using Google to create search results. Big difference.
That's not what happened at all. Microsoft was using click-throughs, generally, as data to feed into their relevancy algorithms, and Google fed them bogus data on nonsense terms. The fact that most of the bogus search data Google fed them did not end up in Bing's results shows that they are not actually copying results. It's a huge difference in what they are doing that was hugely, and (beyond any doubt) knowingly misrepresented by Google.
How they can boast about it being an open standard when they refuse to include Safari and IE in their releases. Am I missing a download page?
You're not missing anything.
Q: How do you tell a Google executive is lying?
A: His lips are moving.
Are you really that ill informed? You have just picked the biggest commercial software and stated therefore open source is a tiny fraction.
Are you so stupid not to know that the majority of software that websites run on is open source. Apache dwarf MS in this space. Even the Mac OSX kernel is based an a fork of freeBSD, an open source *UNIX* system.
Apple's webkit browser engine is open source for god sake. I bet you use more open source software every day than you do commercial shit.
That's total bull.
First, your example is wrong. I use Safari - which is based on webkit. Safari is proprietary. Just like all the other browsers based on Webkit.
Second, we were talking about user space - where proprietary software outnumbers 'open' software many fold. Yes, for servers, open source is common, but still doesn't greatly outnumber proprietary software.
Make no mistake -- what MPEG-LA is doing here is EXACTLY patent trolling. Their explicit goal is to find people who could arguably say Google is infringing on their patents -- patents which were not intentionally infringed on as no one seems to know about them yet. Once they identify these patents, they WILL be demanding Google and anyone else who uses WebM pay them money.
This is textbook patent trolling, and everyone -- no matter how you stand on Apple vs Google -- should be opposed to this. The only people who lose here are consumers.
Nonsense - it's not patent trolling at all. MPEG-LA is responsible for licensing a wide range of patents and codecs. That's their business. As part of that business they have the right to enforce their patents and find infringers.
You're not enabling innovation by paying the cost. Innovation occurs irrespective of patents. Patents are just a way to make money and control software, they do not encourage innovation..
Obviously coming from someone who has never created anything of value.
We live in a free market society. People create things so that they can profit from them. If you remove the profit motive, the incentive for creation drops dramatically. There would be VASTLY less innovation if people couldn't profit from them. Patents help to ensure that people can profit from their innovations.
Actually, Bing was wasn't using google algorithms, they were actually copying Google results - Google planted random words and links into the search engine which had nothing to do with the algorithm, and caught Bing basically using Google to create search results. Big difference.
So what?
Aren't Google "open", can't anyone do whatever they want with their search results?
Hypocrisy has a name and that is Google.
They licensed it from Stanford university, they do not own it neither would they patent their algorithms because being secret offers them more protection than documenting it, in their case/opinion.
It's a joint Patent because they earned that research as Graduate Students while at Stanford.
By law, all their work was co-owned by Stanford.
I happily pay those cents per device to enable innovation.
And quality, OGG and WebM are horrible, I as a web designer cringe at the thought that my well crafted videos are only being served by those two codecs I would pay extra, myself, to be able to use H.264 (exclusively) and well, I do pay for it anyway since I do own at least five Apple devices and soon to get more. You get what you pay for, I have worked with php solutions for years now and I pay developers gladly for the php shopping carts, or CMS programs. Sure you can get semi-free crap coded in China, but that is what you have, semi-free or cheap crap from China so you spend your precious time to troubleshoot so it will function (maybe).
No, so over it. Just freakin' pay for it, (unless it is Adobe overpriced crap, always on the look out for alternatives for that!)
That said I still have to waste my time to encode a video three times so I can serve it up as html5, it is a major pain, but dealing with Flash is even worse, so I just do it. But I would never, ever, ever, ever, ever, want H264 off the table. In case I wasn't clear, I mean EVER!
Google will beat Apple in this area too - the most sued company of all time. With Oracle and MPEG LA clamping on them this decade will see Google beefing up its legal team to new heights. Apple took that reign from Microsoft and now Google is next.
Conjecture founded upon fantasy.