This has been discussed before, here and elsewhere, but it bears repeating: a law that you need to rely on being selectively enforced is a bad law.

The law isn't selectively enforced, the patents are selectively enforced at the discretion of the patent holder.

Patents are broken as hell, but being able to file defensive patents isn't the problem -- it's a symptom.

Personally don't think there should be software patents.

These aren't even software patents. They are patents on mathematical procedures.

Just skim over US20180075343A1 [0] to see what I mean. It's not a patent on a particular application of sequence processing using neural networks. It's not a patent on a particular neural network architecture. It's a patent on the generic use of neural networks for sequence processing. It's not a specific process, it's an idea that encompasses a broad class of processes. There is no sane patent system in which that should be patentable.

Frankly, I don't have a problem with patenting specific algorithms or software implementations. Those, to me, are specific processes. These DeepMind patents are on another level.

Edit: I'm not a patent lawyer. Please correct me if I've read that patent wrong. It's basically a neural network mini-textbook/literature review.

[0]: https://patents.google.com/patent/US20180075343A1/

Often a patent will include background information to assist the reader in understanding the claimed invention. The text will usually also point out the shortcomings of prior inventions and how the present invention is an improvement. Neither of those are part of the invention being claimed.

To understand the scope of what is claimed, you always need to look at the claims. The claims will always specifically point out the scope of the invention. Note that all elements in a claim are necessary. If an accused infringer's activity is missing an element, then it does not infringe.

I think that if you look at the claims of the patent you reference, you'll find that the claims are limited to particular applications of sequence processing using particular neural network configurations.

Not sure about the patentibility of those patents (they are still all in the application phase, and I have not read them), but to my understanding patents a) have to be tested before court and b) often fall back to less generic claims in practice (claim no. N, with N > 1), if not being completely invalidated. Now, I expect Google to have good patent lawyers, but time will show the value of those patents.

Usually when patent applications are made they are written up to be as general as possible and will then steadily be whittled down until they're accepted.

That said, I really don't see how a number of these will get even close to validation. Quite a few are describing an absolutely generic, everyday process with so much prior art it's insane (recurrent neural network?). If I'm missing anything here I'd love if someone could correct and inform me.

Many times companies will file patents on any IP they design that is broad enough to disrupt their market. With the patent being exceptionally broad, it ironically leaves less room for questions when the patent request is filed. One would hope everyone on the Government side of patents would be well versed enough in the given technology but unfortunately that is rarely the case so having a broad patent is sometimes easier to push through.

This could be the point. Hopefully, they will be denied and we can all rest easy. The best defensive patent is something being declared unpatentable.

You are reading it wrong. The things they are patenting look like the following:

1. A neural network system implemented by one or more computers, wherein the neural network system is configured to generate an output sequence of audio data that comprises a respective audio sample at each of a plurality of time steps, and wherein the neural network system comprises:

- a convolutional subnetwork comprising one or more audio-processing convolutional neural network layers, wherein the convolutional subnetwork is configured to, for each of the plurality of time steps:

  - receive a current sequence of audio data that comprises the respective audio sample at each time step that precedes the time step in the output sequence, and

  - process the current sequence of audio data to generate an alternative representation for the time step; and

- an output layer, wherein the output layer is configured to, for each of the plurality of time steps:

  - receive the alternative representation for the time step, and

  - process the alternative representation for the time step to generate an output that defines a score distribution over a plurality of possible audio samples for the time step.

This appears to me to be describing an autoencoder for audio compression.

There are two other claims as well, all related specifically to audio processing.

Now whether those actual claims are valid is a separate question. I don't know the state of the art in 2016, they could have been. They are still math, I agree. But that's how you tell what they are actually claiming, you can entirely skip the body of the patent and just read the numbered claims.

The ones that don't start with "The ... of Claim ..., wherein" are independent claims meaning that they stand on their own. The ones that do read that way are typically used to narrow the independent claim so that when they say the independent claim is too broad they can make those dependent claims mandatory.

So for instance, if the USPTO (probably) rightly claims that generating audio with a convolutional neural network isn't patentable, they can fall back to saying "The neural network system of claim 1, wherein the audio-processing convolutional neural network layers include one or more dilated convolutional neural network layers." is valid combined with claim 1 because no one has thought of that specifically, and perhaps that's all that is granted.

In that case, as long as you don't use a dilated convolutional neural network layer then it is not infringing.

It's still all ridiculous nonsense, but that's how you read the patent.

TBH, I would say the ratio of code published to papers published for DeepMind is pretty small. They have generated a lot of non reproducible results.

Yes, the ratio is pretty low for DeepMind. Higher for Google Brain. Still, DeepMind open-sourced two major frameworks: Sonnet (general DL) [0] and DeepMind Lab (RL environment) [1].

[0] https://deepmind.com/blog/open-sourcing-sonnet/ [1] https://deepmind.com/blog/open-sourcing-deepmind-lab/

Frameworks != reproducible results. Ideally, they'd release all the code you need to get the results from the DDPG paper. I recognize that the code probably depends on proprietary DeepMind tools, making this not feasible. Still, it sucks.

Yes, small as in almost zero.

How many times did Google threaten small companies under seal with its patent portifolio?

If you don't know this number, the one you pointed out is basically useless.

Do you know that number? I have yet to hear a single instance or even rumor of that happening. Your post is the first time I've even seen it mentioned. Do you have any proof to back it up? When you make bold claims like that, I think the onus is on you to back it up.

I am not aware of them ever doing that. There is only two cases where there has been any IP aspect that I am aware of?

One started by Moto before them purchasing and the other the Waymo trade secrets case with Uber.

Google has purchased tons of patents but they use for cross license and NOT for royalities.

Are you confusing Google and Microsoft? MS does use their patents for royalities and perfect example is getting more per Android phone sold from royalities than Google gets.

Past performance does not guarantee future results.

They will sue if they see an emerging threat to the survivability of their core buisness. No one can touch Google on their ads and search ecosystem so they won’t sue. This is an illusion of benevolence.

Non pay walled version: https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-21458094

There is two cases of protecting IP in the history of Google. The first started at Moto before Google purchased and they let continue.

The other was the best known which was the Waymo suit with Uber.

Google gets patents to protect themselves from someone else getting but do not use.

Google instead gives away tons of IP. Like Borg with K8s. Or VP8 and then on top indicates they will protect anyone that uses from patent infringement and on top gives for free.

Or SPDY or map/reduce or GFS or so many others could have patent and hurt the industry but instead gave away and helped the industry push forward. Can't think of any other company that has given away more valuable IP than Google.

This is true while they are on top. I feel like if any company or technology comes along to threaten that position it could change.

Maybe. But also realize you have to protect patents. So if they do not which clearly they do not then no issue.

Also realize Google culture was there when they started and weak and now they are dominate it continues.

Perfect example is owning Chrome and Android which are the dominate two clients. Then own the top 2 web sites with Search and YouTube.

They create a better protocol which saves money with SPDY. Gives a better user experience. But even thought they have NOTHING to gain sharing they do and give away to the standards committee. They do NOT use as a competitive advantage which is just standard good business practices.

That is just not what MS did when in power.

Instead they give it away to help everyone. Also so much very valuable IP they just give away to the industry to help everyone. Kubernettes is a perfect example. But there is so many more. Why on earth do you help your competitors?

But they help competitors that do just evil things against them. They give away Android to Amazon who uses on their Echo, Dot and Fire among other hardware. In return Google gets a ban for ALL companies being allowed to sell the competing Google products. Not just Amazon will NOT sell as that is understandable but they will NOT allow anyone to sell them!

But then SPDY is changed and Google goes back and pays the expense of supporting the changes.

> But even thought they have NOTHING to gain sharing

This is wrong. They would have been ripped apart by people on the Internet if they switched to a proprietary protocol specific to Google for Google properties. Tech users brought the world to Chrome, tech users would just as quickly take them away if they pulled a Microsoft.

>Kubernettes is a perfect example.

K8s is not Borg. It was rewritten in open source. Xooglers could have started it just as easily without Google because the idea is very simple to spread.

>They give away Android to Amazon who uses on their Echo,

It's was open source when they got it and they capitalized on that in the marketing. They didn't "allow" amazon to do anything. They don't allow amazon access to the Google play store so they aren't exactly playing friendly.

>In return Google gets a ban for ALL companies being allowed to sell the competing Google products.

No, the ban is for not allowing native Google apps on Android users (a.k.a Fire phones) that don't pay the tax to Google. Tit-for-tat, which is petty, but tit-for-tat nonetheless.

> Not just Amazon will NOT sell as that is understandable but they will NOT allow anyone to sell them!

I bought a Chromecast at Walmart. Seems like Amazon is only preventing them from being listed in Amazon's marketplace.

>But then SPDY is changed and Google goes back and pays the expense of supporting the changes.

Every browser pays this. That's the Internet. Walled ecosystems with closed protocols die. Google chose the correct move by going open standards, there was no benevolence here.

Google only allowed encrypted traffic with SPDY and why is was used for so long and nobody even knew they were using. So nobody would even have known as nobody did know.

Between their own browser and OS and their own services do not think they would be torn apart. It is not like their services would only work on Chrome or anything like that just better.

Really no different than any browser does proprietary things to make theirs work as well as possible.

But it does not matter. Google gave SPDY away as wanted to push the industry forward and how we got http2 so fast as they basically handed to the standards group not only complete but also since been using for a while they even had the data also to support the benefits.

Why so many companies adopted so quickly. If not for Google we be still debating this and that and not be getting the benefits of http2.

On Borg. Yes K8s is a rewrite from what was learned not only from Borg but another Google solution whose name escapes me.

The point is Google spent a lot of money building Borg and learned from mistakes and fixed and the knowledge gained is extremely valuable yet Google gave it away with K8s. Now Amazon, Microsoft and most other cloud players have it for free and do not have to invest into going through what Google had to in gaining the knowledge. For free and no strings attached and use to compete against Google.

Why? Because it helps move the entire industry forward. Google just looks at the broader tech industry very differently than Microsoft.

>Maybe. But also realize you have to protect patents. So if they do not which clearly they do not then no issue.

That's trademarks.

Thanks! I mix them up. Should have double checked before posting.

^ this.

> DeepMind (+ other research organizations at Google) are among the biggest publishers of AI papers + open-source AI code.

DeepMind is absolutely _not_ a big publisher of open-source AI code, and their papers tend to be very high-level and leave many important details out.

Given HN's recent bashing of Google for abandoning it's Don't be Evil mantra this seems like a rather absurd position to take. "Google totes won't abuse this at all!"

Hope with it being pointed out with a link that your post is incorrect that you might consider updating it?

Why do we continue to get posts like this on HN with inaccurate information when shown to not be true multiple times?

Google did NOT end the motto and has now has employees have it the last thing read in the document as brains are LIFO.

Here is a link to the actual document.

https://abc.xyz/investor/other/google-code-of-conduct.html Google Code of Conduct - Investor Relations - Alphabet

As you can see it is right there on the last line.

Can you update your post with accurate information?

Thanks!