How is it a point against the patent if the paper was written by someone under the employment of Shazam? Isn't the point of the patent to award the innovator with the right to profit from the innovation?

That it was written by someone under the employment of Shazam makes it likely that it describes their algorithm, but for patent protection, what matters is that you can’t apply for a patent for an invention that has been published.

https://www.science.org/content/article/patent-first-publish...: “According to U.S. law, a patent cannot be obtained if an invention was previously known or used by other people in the U.S., or was already patented or published anywhere in the world. Furthermore, publicly using or selling an invention more than 1 year prior to filing a patent application completely bars you from ever winning a patent on that invention.

[…]

In Europe, for instance, there is no 1-year grace period--the chances of winning patent protection is lost the instant an invention becomes public”

You only get a one year grace period after first public discloser to file for a patent in the US. So if the dates in this scenario are: - paper in 2003 - patent 2004-10-21

Only if the paper was released between 2003-10-22 and 2003-12-31 would it meet the one year grace period requirement.

Looks like it’s not relevant in this case since they got a provisional patent in 2002, but that’s likely what the above was referring to as “a point against that patent”.

Thank you! That's elucidating

> [T]he point of the patent [is to] award the innovator with the right to profit from the innovation

... in return for disclosing said innovation for use by others (in the patent) instead of keeping it secret. If the disclosure has already happened without the prospect of royalties (such as in a journal article), then the deal is off. But indeed various places have grace periods for that.

Actually the provisional patent # 60/376,055 was filed on April 25 2002.

So if the paper was indeed published in Oct 2003 then all is well.

As long as you have submitted the patent before publication you are good to go.

You should note that the USA even today still has a one year grace period between when you first published an idea and when you can valodly file for a patent for that idea. So if they published it in June 2003 but applied for the patent in April 2004, then the patent is well within the grace period and the paper doesn't constitute prior art.