"Prior Art Finder" could make it easier to overturn bad patents.
We are all tired of reading about this tech giant suing that tech giant over patent infringement or unholy alliances of tech giants spending hundreds of millions of dollars to buy up patent portfolios from the dead carcasses of tech companies that rolled over and died. For a long time, Google was different. Its open disdain for the whole software patent system made the company a little hipper. They were part of the new wave of companies. They set the code free. But alas, not even mighty Google could exist outside of the web of patents, copyrights and infringements.
When Google bought Motorola Mobility Systems, many speculated that one of the main reasons it paid over $12 billion for Motorola was that it would gain ownership over the treasure trove of patents on smartphone functionality that Motorola owned. Well, it didn’t take long for the other shoe to drop. Google, via Motorola, has filed suit against Apple alleging that Apple’s iPhone, iPad and even Macs infringe on Motorola’s patent.
So Google is not just using patents defensively, which is what they always claimed to do. They have turned into a patent enforcer now as well. But it is never as simple as black and white. While Google seems to have turned into a patent wielding Mr. Hyde, there is still a Dr. Jekyll in there somewhere.
Last week, Google announced the “prior art finder” feature. It works when you search a patent in Google patents. According to the blog post announcing prior art finder, the feature “identifies key phrases from the text of the patent, combines them into a search query, and displays relevant results from Google Patents, Google Scholar, Google Books, and the rest of the web.”
Using this tool, those who are looking to invalidate a patent can find instances of prior art which could be used to challenge the patent. Over time, as more search resources are catalogued, this could become a very valuable tool in the toolbox of those fighting patents.
Of course, it does nothing to stop a bad patent from being issued unless the Patent Office uses something like this as well. Unfortunately, it is still very expensive to fight a patent. Many companies still find it cheaper to cut a deal to license from the patent holder than to fight it out in an expensive court battle.
Google alone is not going to fix the software patent issue. From its actions in the last week, it seems that those at the company are not sure how they want to proceed when it comes to patents.
Until Google loses its Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde personality on this we should not look to them for leadership on trying to reform the software patent process.
