[tristanz]

This is exciting for Hinton I'm sure, but also somewhat worrying for broader community. Hinton has always been very open with his research:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/24/science/scientists-see-adv...

One of the most striking aspects of the research led by Dr. Hinton is that it has taken place largely without the patent restrictions and bitter infighting over intellectual property that characterize high-technology fields.

“We decided early on not to make money out of this, but just to sort of spread it to infect everybody,” he said. “These companies are terribly pleased with this.”

[simonster]

I doubt Google will stop Hinton from publishing, and I think both will still benefit greatly from that arrangement. Larry and Sergey published "The Anatomy of a Large-Scale Hypertextual Web Search Engine" before they were even incorporated, and it doesn't seem to have hurt them much.

[ZeroGravitas]

Sounds like a good fit for Google, who are leading patent disarmament among tech giants:

http://www.google.com/patents/licensing/index.html

Though Google seem to think you can still make money despite/because of sharing, through other means than patent licencing.