What is Florian's strategy?

Posted Oct 2, 2010 13:09 UTC (Sat) by FlorianMueller (guest, #32048)
In reply to: What is Florian's strategy? by dlang
Parent article: Microsoft sues Motorola, citing Android patent infringement (ars technica)

I don't deny there are other success factors, including some that have to do with coding rather than architecture. Still those patents are important. That's why to my knowledge (and I've done some research into this) they've never licensed PageRank and some other key search engine patents to anyone else in the industry. That's exclusionary strategic use.

What is Florian's strategy?

Posted Oct 2, 2010 19:18 UTC (Sat) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523) [Link] (5 responses)

Come on. Even Google says that PageRank is only a part of the equation.

Microsoft successfully developed a decent rival product (Bing) without licensing PageRank. And so far we haven't heard about Google making patent threats.

Even your examples just show that Google doesn't really _care_ about patents.

What is Florian's strategy?

Posted Oct 3, 2010 6:43 UTC (Sun) by Lefty (guest, #51528) [Link]

I'd say it's more a case of your argument wishing that "Google doesn't really care about patents".

What is Florian's strategy?

Posted Oct 3, 2010 18:48 UTC (Sun) by SecretEuroPatentAgentMan (guest, #66656) [Link] (3 responses)

#include TINLA
#include IANYL

> Even Google says that PageRank is only a part of the equation.

Today it probably is. The question is more what it was like in the beginning, back in the day when SEO did not equate making sure you appear in searches on Google.

There are typically 3 reasons why people apply for a patent
- for funding, assuring the VC people that your idea most likely is new and equally importantly does not infringe existing rights
- for startup, making sure you are not killed off by large existing players
- for cross licensing purposes, typically used by those making a living from their IPR portfolio

Google is dominating the search engine market, it is quite possible they do not feel the need to apply for patents as much as they once did. A quick look suggests they have applied for fewer international applications since the peak in 2008. Quite a few of those I find relate to advertising, very little relating to searching.

> Microsoft successfully developed a decent rival product (Bing) without licensing PageRank.

Is their algorithm known?

What is Florian's strategy?

Posted Oct 3, 2010 22:07 UTC (Sun) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523) [Link] (1 responses)

>Today it probably is. The question is more what it was like in the beginning, back in the day when SEO did not equate making sure you appear in searches on Google.

I don't think PageRank held for more than a couple of years before becoming a target for black SEO and thus becoming only a small part of the whole system.

>> Microsoft successfully developed a decent rival product (Bing) without licensing PageRank.
>Is their algorithm known?

Of course, no. But it surely adds boost in search result pages based on number of incoming links.

What is Florian's strategy?

Posted Oct 5, 2010 6:08 UTC (Tue) by SecretEuroPatentAgentMan (guest, #66656) [Link]

>>> Microsoft successfully developed a decent rival product (Bing) without licensing PageRank.

>>Is their algorithm known?

>Of course, no. But it surely adds boost in search result pages based on number of incoming links.

So how do you know?

Since you write "surely" I hope you can also tell me if the Microsoft implementation was based on the disclosure in the Google PageRank patent.

What is Florian's strategy?

Posted Oct 5, 2010 14:07 UTC (Tue) by hozelda (guest, #19341) [Link]

>> - for funding, assuring the VC people that your idea most likely is new and equally importantly does not infringe existing rights

I don't think it can be possible or would be expected to show that you are not stepping on other patents. [depends on your product, but we'll assume sw pats would be in play and we are talking about that industry]. Also, a major rise in sw pats occurred this decade, so if you started off in the 90s or earlier, you might have landed in an area to have avoided (for a while anyway) most problems.
http://www.unionsquareventures.com/2010/01/we-need-an-ind...

Obviously some industries might not likely have so many relevant patents in your area.

>> - for startup, making sure you are not killed off by large existing players

It's not likely you can avoid infringement today in many sw (or similar) areas (again, assuming sw pats were in play), so companies can definitely come and pressure you to pay some big bucks or sell out or in fact be driven out of business. These have all happened enough times that it's probably safe to say you cannot add surety at all.

>> - for cross licensing purposes, typically used by those making a living from their IPR portfolio

Again, looking at these areas where we might presume many patents in effect, if you focus on creating patents and not products, then you could try to make money off the patents, but if you make products, there is a very good chance you infringe somewhere. Those cross-licensing, I think by definition, are making products.