Is Google not aware of Smart Padala and Globe GCash?

I take it back. doesn’t seem like many people are going to use the method anyway, in the U.S.

Abe and Jhay, no. If and only if the claims in Google’s patent can directly describe the GCash and Smart Padala system, then the U.S. patent not valid. Globe and Smart’s services are the basis of prior art that can invalidate a patent. Remember that prior art does not have to have a patent to be effective.

Smart and Globe will have an uphill battle. They could be completely shut out of the US market if Google will pursue its legal options and threaten both companies to cease their operations. Just hope Google’s lawyers don’t patrol patent filings looking for cases to file against competition. The US may still be lagging behind other countries in terms of using mobile phones for various activities, but it is quickly catching up.

And that, my friends, tells you how bad Americans are at business — they actually need patents to protect them from competition.

Patent works for any invention regardless of where you are, it is not affected by state borders.

If Google’s Patent was approved then there are two things:
1) Globe and/or Smart never filed a patent (which is weird); or
2) Google’s “GPay” doesn’t cover Globe’s and Smart’s.

In Intellectual Property Rights, the one holding the “right” have a stronger stand than those who do not have regardless if the one holding the “right” was filed and was approved years or decades after the first ‘similar’ product and/or service was used publicly in a wide range of environment.

If Globe and Smart will want to go after Google they will have a very hard time to win the battle, not counting the fact that Google is bigger than Globe and Smart combined, we have the ff:
1) They will have to prove that Google’s Patent covered Globe’s and Smart’s, if a success,
2) they will have to give a plausible defense as to why they (Globe & Smart) did not file a Patent for it.

Someone who owns the right still outweighs those who first implemented it. We Filipinos lost many money-earner “rights” in the past and we are continually losing more, for the simple fact that people in other countries, especially the Western world, were able to Patent it first.

If they win, Google will of course bring it to the next higher court, and so on. Google will never give up their GPay Patent. And I think the GPay inventor knows about Globe and Smart’s similar service. But it is hard to proof he got (or stole) the idea from them.

Again, back to square one, hard evidence.