You do realize the patent isn't just the title right? Did you really think that they didn't mention anything in a 73 claim patent that rules out satellites or GPS? Or did you not bother to even look at the thing before you decided, conclusively, it wasn't worth a damn?
And how is developing a business to sell these to the military submarining it? Not everyone has the resources and market reach of a Google or a Microsoft.
> When an idea is a mild improvement (or slight step to the left) of another, that doesn't make it patentable or protectable, either. Google didn't invent content indexing or the search engine, and yet no one (reasonable) would argue they need to defer the idea of a search engine.
If your standard of "mild improvement" includes replacing satellites with astronomical costs to launch and operate with weather balloons that are sometimes within the monetary reach of high school physics programs, then yes, I think that's a sufficient improvement to be worthy of some protection.
There are so many crappy patents out there, but from reading this one (from the standpoint of what I think is right, not necessarily what the law says on this issue) I don't think it's one. Like I said, I'd be more sympathetic to your viewpoint if you bothered to even skim it.
In any case, like I said (repeatedly) in the comment you are responding to, I think the more interesting factor here is the claims surrounding a meeting with an NDA. Especially since they allege that the meeting contained detailed information, like work on how to adapt to winds at various altitudes that they say took quite a bit of study.
I'll admit I didn't read the entire patent claim, although I did spend a couple minutes with it.
> And how is developing a business to sell these to the military submarining it?
I didn't say they submarined anything. That was a genera comment about how patents hold even when the "inventor" (and not many patents these days are actual inventions) decides to not develop their invention. It's a license to lock an idea away.
> If your standard of "mild improvement" includes replacing satellites with astronomical costs to launch and operate with weather balloons that are sometimes within the monetary reach of high school physics programs, then yes, I think that's a sufficient improvement to be worthy of some protection.
They used weather balloons (already invented) and put a mesh network on them (already invented). To your own comment, it's not like anyone could come in and develop it from under them - it is costly, and that keeps competition at bay. But I still do not see where you think this deserves some exclusivity.
> Like I said, I'd be more sympathetic to your viewpoint if you bothered to even skim it.
Feeling any sympathy yet? :)
> I think the more interesting factor here is the claims surrounding a meeting with an NDA
NDA's almost always say things like this (from an NDA we've signed):
"Limitation on Obligations. The obligations of the Recipient specified in Section 4 shall not apply, and the Recipient shall have no further obligations, with respect to any Proprietary Information to the extent that such Proprietary Information: (a) is generally known to the public at the time of disclosure or becomes generally known without the Recipient or its Representatives violating this Agreement; (b) is in the Recipient’s possession at the time of disclosure; (c) becomes known to the Recipient through disclosure by sources other than the Disclosing Party without such sources violating any confidentiality obligations to the Disclosing Party; or (d) is independently developed by the Recipient without reference to or reliance upon the Disclosing Party's Proprietary Information."
So basically, if Google was already thinking about balloon grid networks, and wanted to see if they could collaborate with this company, then ballon grid networks are not covered under the NDA. Nor is anything else Google was considering prior to this meeting, that happened to be analogous. Likely if there is discovery, it will focus on this.
No, because if you skimmed it and then decided to say it was confusable with the prior art of communications satellites, you've just shifted from being lazy to plain disingenuous.
> NDA's almost always say things like this (from an NDA we've signed):
And you've read their NDA? I don't know how much more I have to couch things with allege and supposedly. I have no idea if they're blowing smoke up Google's ass or if they have a real claim. But you sure as hell don't have any evidence to write them off as confidently as you have been.
I'm sorry I didn't print out the patent, stash it away, go get a law degree, come back, study it, get a second opinion, and then comment, but hey, neither did anyone here, and yet HN survives.
I read enough to know I disagreed with it. I have been in business long enough to know you don't sign an NDA that doesn't cover internal prior art. I know you think you have a grasp on my ability to comment intelligently on patents and NDAs, but you are mistaken.
And be careful who you call disingenuous. It's an insult of a pretty high order, and were I a lesser person, I might have taken it personally.
https://fee.org/articles/how-henry-ford-zapped-a-licensing-m...
To wit: the patent on the gas engine was held to be enforceable only to that exact specification, and it changed the world more than floating balloons. Case law here is pretty clear, and broad patents like this would not hold up in the time of the rise of the car.
You may also want to look up what falling means (hint: working satellites do it, working balloons do not).
Satellites? GPS? Look, just because you say "here's an idea..." doesn't give you infinite protections to realize (or submarine, with exclusivity) that idea.
When an idea is a mild improvement (or slight step to the left) of another, that doesn't make it patentable or protectable, either. Google didn't invent content indexing or the search engine, and yet no one (reasonable) would argue they need to defer the idea of a search engine.
Besides, recovering balloons and transmitting data between airborne objects existed so long before this company, their claims are ridiculous.