No more "Martin logos" for Red Nose Day, St. David's Day and more due to Google? blog

Former_MSE_Helen

This is the discussion to link on the back of Martin's blog. Please read the blog first, as this discussion follows it.

Read Martin's "No more "Martin logos" for Red Nose Day, St. David's Day and more due to Google?" Blog.

Please click 'post reply' to discuss below.

Reverbe

That has to be nonsense Martin.. There are a lot of software packages we can all use to play about with our pics.. they cannot tell us we dont have the right to muck about with pics we take and are of ourselves

minerva_windsong

Aww I hope not, I like the 'seasonal' Martin pics (though whilst I appreciate you're a busy bunch they could be put up/taken down earlier - the Valentine's one only seemed to go up on the day itself and was then there for ages...)!

nzseries1

I thought that this was an April Fools' Day blog post, but then realised that's not for another week!
Surely this cannot be true? If so, Google are going against their "don't be evil" motto, well, even more against it than usual!!

Joe_Bloggs

This must be an April Fools day joke than has been mistakenly issued a week early.
Patent law is a joke. What will they try and patent next ? My guess is walking upright, the wearing of hats and the shaking of hands.
J_B.

nzseries1

Joe_Bloggs wrote: »

This must be an April Fools day joke than has been mistakenly issued a week early.

Um, excuse me, I patented that idea back at 10:41 AM. Prepare to be sued.

MSE_Martin

Our lawyer thinks its likely to have limited impact for us.... still double checking though

MorphJunk

[Warning: age-specific gag follows]

It seems the Google boys must have spent a lot of time playing on the Sega Mega Drive in their youth; their latest statement on the matter simply says:

"All your logo are belong to us..."

Decorian

I like the seasonal Martin's logos, they should stick around.

Surely you can use the "Prior Art" argument. You've been doing it for years before the patent was filed, and therefore either the patent is not valid, or you have an exemption from it.
I am not a lawyer (I'm a physicist) so obviously don't take my word for it, but i thought something that was already common practice is not allowed to be patented.

You may even be able to have the patent rejected if you file evidence of prior art to the patent office, but again I'm not sure about these things.

I really hope Google don't turn evil and start throwing patents around like the rest of the computing giants.

Niemand

Here's a link to the Patent: United States Patent 7,912,915: Systems and methods for enticing users to access a web site.

spook

I suspect this is just Google trying to protect themselves in case someone else patents the same idea and tries to get Google to stop. They will never actually enforce it.

This sort of thing happens a lot due to the brokenness of the patent system.

Anyway, Google certainly weren't the first to do special event logos - Yahoo used to do it in the 90s, before Google existed. Many TV stations did it before that.