Comment by skywhopper
6 years ago
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.
Well, the first bonus was large. I think the idea was to give you an incentive to try it, and get you used to the system. After that, the benefits decreased. I think that after several patents, the bonus dwindled to (almost) nothing.