Several days ago, Google announced that it would not assert ten of its patents against any user, distributor, or open-source software. The author of Foss Patents discusses how this patent giveaway for Google was
not generous at all. Not only does the company own at least 17,000 patents (which means that they gave out less than 1% of its patents), other companies in similar industries such as IBM and Sun Microsystems pledged 500 and 1,600 of their patents, respectively. Moreover, the author discusses how that most of the time, these pledges do not turn out to be too helpful. To illustrate this point, the ten patents Google gave out did not include any search-related patents. Reading about the contents of those ten patents from another article, I found out that they are related to MapReduce, a computing model for processing large date sets.
An analyst of WiseHarbor, Keith Mallinson explained how Google is not a company that makes money out of licensing fees, so this patent pledge was quite unsurprising. Also, Google stated how their intention is to make patent peace without making money and also to encourage other patent holders. Thereofore, it appears as if Google wanted to make a positive image of itself to the public by making such a move.
Like the author from Foss Patents claims, Google's pledge appears to be pretty ungenerous, after reading about those other companies such as IBM and Sun Microsystems. However, I think it is a little too quick to completely judge that their move was stingy. It might turn out that some user, distributor, or open-source software adopts one or several of those ten patents and create an innovation!
I agree with the author of Foss Patents because I personally think it was a PR move to seem like a friendly, responsible company. Maybe they are, but the number of patents they gave away are still very immaterial to the scope of their operations.
ReplyDeleteI agree, it's just a way for Google to be perceived as above everyone else, and more than that also gives them the ability to shield themselves from others.
ReplyDeleteEven if this is a PR stunt it's not really making total sense for me... I am not used to companies for the most part doing these types of PR stunts, I think there is a hidden reason behind this pledge.
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