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Google Tried to Patent My Work After a Job Interview

(patentpandas.org)
1798 points jerryX | 3 comments | 30 Nov 18 05:25 UTC | HN request time: 0.634s | source
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taneq ◴[30 Nov 18 06:06 UTC] No.18567105[source]▶
I'm amazed at how relaxed their response is. If I told someone about some of my work and then found out they'd tried to patent it, I would be pissed!
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1. buboard ◴[30 Nov 18 10:23 UTC] No.18568074[source]▶
Probably wouldnt ring nice for MIT to go to war with google
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2. adventured ◴[30 Nov 18 12:37 UTC] No.18568629[source]▶
Interestingly enough in the hierarchy of power in that context, MIT has more than Google.

MIT is free standing when it comes to their finances. They have a $16.4 billion endowment. So Google (etc) doesn't have economic leverage over them, such that MIT always needs money and can't afford to ever cross large organizations.

If you get three or four of the better schools together in the conflict, Google would beg forgiveness. They desperately need access to the best those schools have to offer, and they know it. That access and relationship is worth more than gold or pride to them. Money? They've got so much they have no idea what to do with it. Get cut out of critical relationships with elite schools and that can take enough of your edge away over time that you start losing in subsequent competitive rounds of don't be killed by tech inflection.

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3. aetimmes ◴[30 Nov 18 15:24 UTC] No.18569709[source]▶
The fact that a $16.4B endowment exists doesn't mean that any of it is available to fight a pissing match with Google (whose market cap is still ~45-50x MIT's endowment) - in my experience at a similar institution, I was told "we have $X in endowments, but all of it is essentially already spent" - it had been earmarked for various projects 5+ years in advance.