Google is being sued by Northeastern University and a start-up run by an associate professor over allegations Google breached a patent relating to the way Google pulls data from its databases.
The suit, lodged in the patent friendly US District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, alleges that Google misappropriated a 1997 patent that relates to a method of breaking database queries into multiple portions and having each part processed by a different computer. This method allows for faster results on Google, according to Boston.com.
Whilst the validity of the claim will ultimately be decided in court, the story behind the claim is classic patent trolling. Jarg Corp, the startup who along with Northeastern is suing in this case, was approached by a Boston Law Firm 2 1/2 years ago (who they refuse to name) suggesting that Google may have breached their patents. Rather than spend money and take action then (which the law firm who approached them wanted), Jarg Corp waited until they could find a lawyer who would take the case on a contingency basis, ie: they only get paid if the case is successful. They are so confident in their case they aren’t willing to spend money on it…which sort of draws its own conclusions.
Google’s only response so far is to note that they are aware of the case, and that they believe it to be “without merit.”
#51 – “It sounds like the patent is for an obvious idea.”
Have you read the patent? The complaint? Have you examined the prior art? Obviously not by your statement.
“I vote patent troll.”
Who cares what you vote? You’re obviously uninformed.
“There should be a poll after every patent lawsuit article to let readers vote on whether the litigant is a patent troll or not.”
Similarly, who cares what a bunch of uninformed readers think? A completely useless poll, IMHO.
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By this and my previous comments, I’m not faulting TC or Duncan for reporting this, just by the completely uninformed labeling of this as a “patent troll” case. And just to be clear I do not know nor am I affiliated with any of the parties on this issue.
It is a patent troll because it is such an obvious and common idea. Having one computer send fragmented requests to multiple computers seems obvious. Isn’t this just parallel computing? I hope Google wins.
As a computer programmer I hate patents. It is so difficult to know all patents and ensure you aren’t breaking any. And even harder are all the obvious patents that should never have been accepted to begin with. How can I compete with that?
> waited until they could find a lawyer who would take the case on a
> contingency basis, ie: they only get paid if the case is successful.
> They are so confident in their case they aren’t willing to spend money
> on it…which sort of draws its own conclusions.
…not quite sure to make of that last snide comment; so, a couple of thoughts for you:
- perhaps they don’t have a lot of money with which to fight a patent case (and with one foot in the academic arena and the other in a commercial company, it sure sounds like this is the case). Finding a lawyer who will take the case on a contingency basis is probably the only way this thing will see the light of day
- patent law is designed to protect all economic benefit from an idea. That include past, present and future. Just because an idea isn’t earning a profit yet, doesn’t mean that it shouldn’t be defended against infringement. Unfortunately, it’s obvious that patent lawyers are reluctant to take cases on a contingency basis… I wonder why that is? Perhaps because patent law is a large crap shoot that depends heavily on outlasting the other guy and has very little to do with fairness in either the letter or the spirit of the law.
Auttomatt (Matt) is a prick.
@Duncan Riley
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“Don’t play ethics and credibility with me boy, it’s a zero win game for you
Couldn’t have agreed more Duncan.
Leaving the *guesswork* about motivations and timing aside for the moment.
Can’t we find a knowledgeable software patent expert to comment about the validity of the patent itself? I agree that the abstract seems to describe databse query technology that predates the 1997 patent by many years, So the real question is whether there is anything really unique in the patent? the fact that is was granted doesn’t really mean that much – there are many patents that, when challenged can be found to not valid. This seems like it might be one of them and of course, none of has any idea what technology Google is actually using…