Comment by setquk
6 years ago
It’s down to individuals rather than culture in these things. By purely statistics, an organisation of any size has less than ethical people in it even if they have the best outward impression. Unfortunately these sorts of people tend to favour power and slowly work their way to positions that give them that. Then the whole org is a bad apple.
Having been in a similar situation before, the correct answer is “I’ll get my lawyer to contact you with our NDA process” or if you’re really worried “fuck off”.
It’s probably better to file patent first though. The patent is what you need to sell them.
Repeated unethical behavior is not the fault of a few bad actors, but of an organization designed to encourage that behavior. I wouldn't discount Google as being at fault seeing as how we already have two instances of Google's ATAP committing patent fraud despite little research and outreach being done.
One fun fact I stumbled across is any misconduct when filing for a patent voids the entire patent application, not just the claims that the misconduct occurred in: https://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/pac/mpep/s2016.html
Assholes hire assholes. Eventually the assholes all float to the top and make asshole decisions. You can't win. This is a failure mode of every organisation I have ever seen.
My take on it is as long as there are instruments to abuse there will be unethical people to do so. Patent law and drug prohibition are equivalent, to me, in this way. They create unnatural economic sectors where unethical behavior is favored.
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Is there any evidence of this? I've seen assholes work for nice people as well.
Yes, failure to include an inventor of a single claim invalidates the patent family.
That's all well and good, but the process of invalidating the patent is long and expensive.
Designing am organization and keeping it running well are incredibly difficult. What you see as encouraging poor behavior could easily be poor management. I have never worked at Google so I do not know.
It can also result in attorney discipline.
Culture is created by individuals. But the fact that Google gives large bonuses to employees for giving their patent lawyers topics to pursue is a huge incentive for unethical behavior like described in these anecdotes.
As for the rest of your argument, there’s a big gap between the people who love to share ideas and tech and the people who want to monetize every drop of IP. I think it would take a pretty twisted or cynical mind to even think of patenting something like an electronics-integrated storybook. This is not a remotely new idea (story/picture books with embedded electronics have been around for decades), and there’s no fundamental innovation at the root of these patents. This is just the worst impulses of VC culture out of control.
The bonuses are actually not that large. The real motivation is to have patents to put into your promo packet to help you the next time you apply for promotion.
I had 2 patents issued when I was at Google. As best as I can recall, the bonus for first one was nice ($5K?), and then the second was much smaller ($1K). I'm not sure how far the reward decays (I do not recall if it reaches zero). I remember thinking at the time that the Google patent bonuses were much smaller than patent bonuses at other companies, as a friend at Red Hat was making a killing via patent bonuses.
However, I'm sure the patent lawyers made a lot
$5K is large for a US company IMHO, but I don't work in CA. It's still a tiny incentive and peanuts compared to how much the lawyer and the PTO get paid for your patent. You know why they pay you? Two reasons. One is as an incentive - people get all excited about little 1K bonuses. The other is that they are effectively "buying" your idea. That whole bit about the assignee? Yeah, no. In the US, the inventor is legally the "owner" of the patent (IANAL so wording...). They have to give you something in return for it. The monetary award and the associated documentation is to prove you made a fair exchange.
My understanding (again IANAL) is that even if you sign documents with your company agreeing that they own all your innovation while employed, you are still legally the assignee for your patents. If you run off and patent something while employed and don't sign over a patent they want, you will be in breach of whatever contract/document you signed, but until any conflict is resolved it's not their patent until you assign it to them.
Accepting the "patent bonus" is a way of having you confirm the transfer of your IP to them. It legally finalizes the deal you made when you hired in and signed that bullshit IP document. From their side it's a tiny price to pay for that.
I'm sure a real lawyer can iron out the details I didn't get right in the above.
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> It’s down to individuals rather than culture in these things. By purely statistics, an organisation of any size has less than ethical people in it even if they have the best outward impression.
How the organisations react to that bad apples is what matters. I have seen companies ruined by half a dozen people that bully others, play office politics and blame games. Most of the people were fantastic, but the CEO will do nothing about this bullies in high positions.
If a company has no way of dealing with these people, the company does not deserve to survive. So, yes there are bad apples. But, the companies have the tools to make them correct their behaviour or get rid of them.
> It’s probably better to file patent first though.
Yes. Completely agree. Companies should play nice, but you should protect yourself just in case.