Alternative View: Will Google's Prior Art Finder Become An 'Infringement Finder' For Trolls?

from the technology-is-neutral dept

Thu, Aug 16th 2012 6:13am — Mike Masnick

So, we were just talking about Google's new prior art finder tool, which can help people find prior art associated with a patent with a single click. As we noted, it tries to find elements associated with the patent and then restrict the search results to items published prior to the priority date on the patent.

Of course, Patrick, over at GameTimeIP (who tends to be a supporter of the concept of patent trolling) has noticed that the tool can quickly be switched from a "prior art finder" to a "possible infringement finder" for patent trolls (he doesn't use that term, but you know what he means). That's because the tool does not actually limit you to the end date in question -- and with a little quick cutting and pasting, you can turn that priority date from the end date into the start date.

Take, for example, Amazon's infamous "one click" patent, 5,960,411. Pop that into the prior art finder and you get a bunch of results with an end date of 9/12/1997:

Cut and paste and you get:

And... suddenly, you've got a list of things that were published after the patent's priority date, which may indicate places where infringement happened. So, it's possible that instead of a tool to disrupt patent trolls, it could be a tool to enable patent trolls to find more victims.

Patrick (jokingly?) suggests that Google's intention here is to actually help the trolls. As he notes:

Google’s motivation to create this new feature are not entirely clear, but they have provided what should be a useful advancement in patent analysis. By speeding up access to information that may lead to evidence of infringement, Google puts more power back into the hands of inventors and patent owners. Perhaps they hope to gain a little positive patent karma after taking ownership of a large patent portfolio from the former Motorola.

Of course as has been noted dozens if not hundreds of times, technology is "neutral" and can be used for both good and bad purposes (which is good and which is bad may depend on whether or not you view shaking down innovators for cash "good" or "bad"). That said, I actually think that the tool is probably not quite as useful for finding infringement as Patrick seems to think it will be. That's because most of the results are things that tend to be useful in showing prior art, but less so in showing what's being used in the actual market. That is, it shows things like scholarly articles and previous patents -- which is what patent examiners tend to like to see. While that also limits some of the usage as a true "prior art" finder, it does focus on the types of things that tend to be compelling for prior art... but not so useful for infringement.

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Filed Under: infringement, patent trolls, patents, prior art, prior art finder
Companies: google

6 Comments

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abc gum, 16 Aug 2012 @ 7:00am

That's brilliant!
Can it be also be used as a troll finder, because that would be awesome.
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Keii (profile), 16 Aug 2012 @ 7:04am

Well there could be a silver lining in all of this.
Do everything you can to enable the patent trolls to clog up the system with lawsuits so that someone in power gets a clue and fixes the system.
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Jeremy Lyman (profile), 16 Aug 2012 @ 7:19am

Still Infringement?
Sounds like a "Patents That Shouldn't Have Been Issued" finder.

If I go get all the permits my business needs and later it turns out that the City Effed up big time and none of the permits were valid, it seems like my culpability should be vastly different. I tried to follow the rules and they failed me, not the other way around.

Or, maybe patent warfare will be taken to the next level where company A will register "honey pot" patents that infringe on prior patents. Then when the trolls come to feed, Company A whips out their real patent from 13 years ago that predates all the others. BAM! Double trolled.
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Patrick, 16 Aug 2012 @ 7:24am

tongue in cheek, but only slightly
Jokingly? Sure, a little. I doubt very seriously that anyone at Google had, as lawyers call it, specific intent to aid patent enforcers.

"I actually think that the tool is probably not quite as useful for finding infringement as Patrick seems to think it will be."

Here's where the tongue-in-cheek part comes in ... whether you're looking for prior art or infringement, the base mission is the same: find something that meets each and every element of the claims. The primary difference being which direction you turn once you leave home base.

Thus, I think Google's new tool will be about as effective at finding infringement as it is at finding prior art. It is a starting point (for some) and nothing more...
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DannyB (profile), 16 Aug 2012 @ 8:24am

Re:
You beat me to it. I give you an Insightful.

The best way to get rid of a bad law is to enforce it.
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Mason Wheeler (profile), 17 Aug 2012 @ 10:17am

Re: tongue in cheek, but only slightly
"I doubt very seriously that anyone at Google had, as lawyers call it, specific intent to aid patent enforcers."

I think you're a verb there...
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