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Ask HN: Why in FAANG companies a manager becomes patent co-author?

7 points by master_yoda_1 ↗ HN
I have seen managers become a co-author in any patent their team file. This undermine the principle of a patent that the person coming up with the idea should only file a patent. I know people who have tens of patent but they don't know anything about them as the person is just a manager and anybody in the team file a patent they have to add the manager.

7 comments

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kowlo
Much like academic publications, the authors listed on a paper don't necessarily know anything about the work.
nowherebeen
May I know why is that?
[deleted]
(comment deleted)
gtirloni
Status, reputation building through citation, etc.
avl999
This never happened once in any of the teams I worked on in my 5 years at FAANG (Amazon specificially).
icedchai
This is very common.

FYI I'm listed on a couple patents from earlier in my career, and I'm not even sure what I contributed.

stonecharioteer
A manager in my previous company tried to make me file patents for what were crud apps so he could get credit for it. Dirtbag quit and kept calling me to file the patents before he left so his name would be on them. I was the main developer on the project and when I told him I won't because I don't think there's anything worth patenting, he blew his qtop and asked why my name was on the patent application. I cut him off and ensured he'd never talk to me again. He wasn't my reporting manager but one level higher. I also cut off my reporting manager who enabled him, because I used to think he was a friend and realized he was no less than the dirt bag aforementioned. My junior devs got the credit instead, and they were rewarded for the application and the trade secret filing.