[jimmyl02]

maybe this is similar to google's patenting of dropout for neural networks? you can never know but so far there haven't been many adverse effects and they claim that they patent it so others can't maliciously patent and enforce it.

dropout patent link: https://patents.google.com/patent/US9406017B2/en

[windlep]

That was what the authors claimed when I asked them about the macaroon patent. It'd be nice if Google had a legal document associated with patents they never plan to enforce, or the constraints around when they might enforce them (e.g. only against patent trolls) that a company could rely on.

[xyzzy_plugh]

I don't disagree but maintaining an arsenal of defensive parents is Enterprise IP legal 101. All the big companies do this. The goal is to avoid litigation by mutually assured destruction. At least that's what they tell you. Many projects grant you patents as part of, for example, an OSS project's license.

It's not unusual to include a clause that voids any such terms of you litigate over your own parents, for example -- hence the mutually assured destruction. Can you imagine what would happen if Google and Facebook tried to duke out some dumb software patent in court? A waste for all parties.

Lastly Google has a wealth of resources here: https://google.github.io/opencasebook/patents/#patents-in-op...