Northeastern University Sues Google Over Patent

kihbord writes to mention that Boston's Northeastern University and Waltham, Mass. based company Jarg have brought suit against Google for apparently infringing on a distributed database system developed by Kenneth Baclawski. "The patent describes a distributed database system that breaks search queries into fragments and distributes them to multiple computers in a network to get faster results. The patent was assigned to Northeastern University, which licensed it exclusively to Jarg, according to the lawsuit, filed last Tuesday with the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas."

Re:We need a solution to the madness

[Talez]

If a north eastern company has to sue a north western company in a Texas court because they're more friendly to patent litigation then you're dealing with a patent troll.

Re:Lawyers Troll the Patent Office?

[DustyShadow]

It is very rare to find a law firm to take a patent case on a contingency basis. The cases take an enormous amount of time and resources and are too risky for contingencies.

Re:We need a solution to the madness

[Duhavid]

Sure you can... Breaking the work up over multiple machines
has got to be about as obvious as can be.

Soon they will be suing the people who came up with RPC,
because it breaks the same patent.

Re:Dont be so quick to shout troll

[DustyShadow]

If Google has even 1 customer there, they can be held to jurisdiction there. I think I'll take the bet that someone there has given Google money in one way or another.

Re:Patent In Question & University Patent Port

[Ash Vince]

One of the interesting things I've noticed over the past 10+ years of working in IT is that more and more companies are asking questions like "How many patents do you have?" on job applications.

But the answer will almost always be zero as the patents would be owned by whoever was paying you when you came up with the idea. Even if you come up with the idea while studying it will just be the uni that owns it.

The fact is that the patent system has long been designed so that you need money to enjoy its protection, people who are unemployed very rarely have enough money to file a patent and most contracts of employment sign any patent rights over to your employer.

Re:Interesting Dates

[harlows_monkeys]

FTA, the patent was filed on Dec 2, 1997

It was filed on October 5, 1994. December 2, 1997 is the issue date.

Re:We need a solution to the madness

[Talez]

They have no competing product, they're hiring lawyers on a contingency basis, they're filing in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas based on the most stretched association with that venue and they've demanded a jury trial and an injunction up front. They're basically trying to force Google to make the suit go away and they're just rolling the dice to see if they get lucky.

Looks like a patent troll, sounds like a patent troll, smells like a patent troll. They're not going to be able to claim damages for lost profits. The only difference between these people and a typical dedicated patent troll IP firm is that they don't employ their own lawyers and they make some shitty, unrelated product that really has no relevance to this case.

Re:University with Patents?

[CopaceticOpus]

Universities are corporations, nothing more or less.

Right. As usual on Slashdot, everything must be black and white. It's not as if universities could seek to profit from their inventions, AND educate people and give back to society. Also, since making a profit makes you evil, they are obviously not trying to use the money to improve their programs and stretch their limited budgets.

Re:We need a solution to the madness

[Duhavid]

"Reality is that there's a lot of things that are "obvious" in hindsight ""

Dividing the search up among multiple machines if one
machine is not enough is pretty obvious. And not just
in hindsight.

"but who gets to say so?"

I see the problem, but I don't think we should allow that
as an excuse for such things.

Re:Prior Art?

[Mr. Underbridge]

Don't be so damn cynical! Obviously Northeastern just wants to play fair by moving the disupute to a neutral venue.

You, sir, have a future in PR.

Re:Just another patent troll...

[Nazlfrag]

In other words, it was such a simple and obvious solution to a distributed computing problem that they shouldn't have had a patent awarded to them anyway. Well, that and you shouldn't be able to patent algorithms in the first place.