Google Patents Telling Time

theodp writes "Will Google's battle against Microsoft and Apple over their use of 'bogus' patents result in greater scrutiny of its own IP holdings? Take Google's new patent on 'Electronic Shipping Notifications' (please!), which might pique the interest of Amazon.com, UPS, the USPS and others in the shipping business, since providing customers with guesstimates of what time The King of Queens will show up at their door with Christmas presents could now constitute patent infringement. From the patent: 'The broker sends an electronic message, such as an email or text message, to the customer prior to the estimated shipment arrival time to inform the customer of the impending arrival. The customer can thus arrange for someone to be at the shipping address to receive the shipment at the estimated arrival time.' To help the USPTO understand its invention, Google supplied this diagram."

it's a bit more complicated than it sounds

[Chirs]

Looking at the actual patent, what they're doing is figuring out based on historical delivery information a more accurate estimated time of day for the delivery and sending an email to the recipient with that information *on the day of delivery*.

Basically it saves the recipient having to constantly check the tracking page for the courier.

Not earthshaking, but more than is currently offered.

You realize what is actually being claimed, right?

[beachels416]

For those that are so quick to jump on Google about this (which I suppose is understandable these days), you would hope that one would actually read the patent, or understand that the only important part of a patent is the claims, NOT the abstract or diagram provided. Yes, Google has patented providing delivery notifications...but the important, relevant question is HOW it calculates and provides those notifications. For, example, Google has decided that it is more efficient to, during shipment, halt the queries to the shipper's computer system until the day before the expected delivery date, then resume so as to provide up-to-date notifications. It has also claimed analyzing historical data of shipping routes and times to determine, down to the minute (theoretically) estimates of an arrival time, not based on what the shipper says, but what it has demonstrated in the past. Finally, UPS or other shippers could not possibly infringe because the patent clearly provides for a "broker" computer, which is explicitly not the shipper's computer, to query the shipper's database. The point is that Google has a novel idea here, and has defined it as such. Boiled down to its essence, it provides shipping notifications just like others do. But ice and a/c units both cool air, coffee cups and vases both hold liquid, dial-up and cable both provide access to the internet. The method is what is important, not the end result. To infringe a patent, one has to infringe on all claims. While some claims may be obvious, it is the (sometimes few) non-obvious ones that actually matter. Google has provided some of those non-obvious, novel claims (at least it appears to have) and it seems to have a valid patent.

Re:Nothing to see here

[pdabbadabba]

As usual, actually reading the patent helps. The patent is not on "shipping" or on "shipment notifications" and is obviously not on "telling time." It is on a process whereby a third party can analyze status information provided by the shipper, possibly in light of historical data, to predict an arrival time (not just date). This sounds like a new and useful service to me.

As usual, I'm open to the suggestion that this is obvious, but could we at least begin our discussion with a remotely accurate description of what is claimed in the patent? Here's a tip for reading patents: glance at the abstract for context but know that it doesn't mean much; the meat of a patent is in its "Claims" section.

I agree that there are problems with the patent system, but posts like these get in the way of having real discussions about them. This is totally unserious journalism from a site that will use any excuse to mock the US patent system, actual merits of the patent be damned.