Source: https://www.wired.com/story/eric-swildens-uber-waymo-lawsuit...
A lawyer who becomes mayor is still a lawyer. A doctor who runs a phamacology company is still a doctor. And yes, and engineer who founds a company still retains the core skills and prestige of their hardwon profession.
Or at least, I think they should.
Outside the US, engineering is the same. Within the US, there is no formal board for software engineerig but we can at least informally say one is an engineer if other engineers would recognize them as such. I know people whom graduated bootcamps and could qualify as engineers, albiet inexperienced ones, and those who have finished 4 years of schooling but cannot practice engineering.
The guy in the article was inducted into the Academy of Science and Engineering at 34. Whether that makes him pretigious or not isn't the question, but there is no doubt in my mind that he is an engineer.
A software developer is an engineer the same way a janitor is a sanitation engineer.
The reference to the "95+ page document of complex legal argumentation"? That's evidence in support of the claim in the comment. Parent didn't make up that it's a complex lengthy legal document themselves.
Sure, the theory that he was a strawman might or might not pan out. But that this is no simple "engineer vigilante" is evident. Perhaps it's a very organized vigilante with big resources (and the money mentioned also point to that). But such a move is not above suspicion of some other corporate entity being involved. Should anybody thinking so just keep it to themselves? Or are people that might agree at fault if they vote such a comment up?
>But that this is no simple "engineer vigilante" is evident
It is not to me. It's plausible that he might not be but I haven't seen a conclusive demonstration either and I'd sooner trust Ars over "some anonymous poster on HN who says it's not true".
I tried reading the PDF provided and I found it very obtuse and verbose, but then again so are patent applications as far as I'm concerned. I'm genuinely incapable of judging the level of skill and dedication required to create something like that. If you are I'd very much like to hear about it instead of throwing vague accusations. Is is that implausible that a skilled engineer used to dealing with patents could come up with something like that on their own or with only minor outside help?
If you're going to argue against an assertion, you should include an argument.
A conspiracy theory is an explanation of an event or situation that invokes a conspiracy [...] without credible evidence.
The poster formed an opinion based on observations and gave his reasons for doing so. If you disagree with his observations, the best way to do so is to provide your reasons for disagreeing with his analysis.
The amount by which engineering egos are inflated is amazing. Guess what - being a lawyer takes a bit more work than being on a legal case for three years. Why, as opposed to engineers, there's actually a bar they are held to.
If your purpose is to pass the bar, you probably want to direct the topics of those 3 years of meeting with lawyers. If you want to specialize in patent law without concern for passing the bar, 3 years could be overkill. So you may only need to spend 1-2 days a week for 3 years meeting with patent lawyers.
Sometimes marketing people that sit with the engineers actually learn to code. It has happened at my company. Do they have all the skills someone who got a CS degree would have? Maybe not. Do they have some subset of those skills necessary for the particular tasks the team is faced with daily at this company? Sure.
Do you really think it's impossible a founder and engineer who went through a three year battle over patents could form a similar document? You'd only have to understand the assertions and have an attorney review your work. There are tons of legal reviews which end up with only one person being listed while the others are not given attribution to the document.
can a dedicated lawyer pick up some engineering books and build a bridge that can survive SF's 'Big One'?
I can tell you from witnessed experience that a "car engineer" can custom design a house, do most of the code-related work himself, and pass all relevant inspections on the first try (with flying colors and compliments from the inspector), which seems much closer in scope.
As for surviving "the big one"... it depends on how big? I'm not sure humanity in general knows how to build a bridge that could survive a dozen meters of shift between its piers. But that is a possibility in the largest conceivable earthquakes.
Except perhaps patent lawyers, which in most jurisdictions have both engineering and lawyering degrees. Or perhaps just a motivated company founder with 4 years of expertise fighting patents. Pretty far fetched I know, but perhaps one should keep a open mind...
Sure, an engineer can be a lawyer (there's no law of physics against it). But it's also much less often than this happens than an engineer NOT being a lawyer. That's the parent's argument, not that it's impossible.