Google Sued Over Patents On Open Source Code
from the bad-reporting dept
We’ve discussed in the past how reporters often contribute to misconceptions about the patent system and patent disputes. They commonly report that those sued for infringement are accused of “copying” or “taking” an invention from another company, when it’s much more common for infringement lawsuits to involve independent invention. Now we’ve got another example. Red Bend Software is the latest in a long list of companies suing Google for patent infringement, claiming that Google violates its patent 6,546,552 on “difference extraction between two versions of data-tables containing intra-references.”
Specifically, Red Bend claims that Google’s Chrome browser violates this patent by including an algorithm, called Courgette, that lets Google push compressed software updates. Of course, plenty of companies have come up with various ways to push compressed software updates over the years, so I’m at a loss as to why it requires a patent… but that’s a different issue. The problem here is the reporting on this lawsuit by Mass High Tech and reporter Galen Moore. First, he claims that this lawsuit suggests Google’s “open-source Chrome browser isn’t so open source after all.” Huh? I’ve read that sentence over and over again and I can’t figure out how a patent dispute would mean that Chrome isn’t open source. This kind of reporting suggests that a patent simply wipes out the type of license covering a software.
The second questionable bit is in talking about how Red Bend (like plenty of patent holders putting forth lawsuits) is claiming willful infringement, which gives a company triple damages if found to be true. So what’s the evidence of “willful infringement.” A claim that “Google has known about the conflicting patent since September 7.” September 7th? That’s a month and a half ago. The patent was issued in 2003. And Courgette was first used in July. It’s difficult to see how anyone could claim with a straight face willful infringement when you just informed them of your patent, and that happened after the software was already in use. You don’t even need to know much about patents to at least point these facts out.
But, of course, you wouldn’t know any of that from the article. Instead, your average reader would likely read this, thinking that Google somehow “took” this invention from Red Bend and that somehow negates Google’s “open source” license on Chrome.
Filed Under: open source, patents, reporting
Companies: google, red blend
Comments on “Google Sued Over Patents On Open Source Code”
Updating Executables
Wow, this sounds exactly like what IBM calls an APAR and has been doing since the ’60s.
bindiff
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc784415%28WS.10%29.aspx
Bindiff.exe: Binary File Difference Finder
Updated: March 28, 2003
Sounds like the same thing.
Courgette works by first dis-assembling the file, and then diffing the resulting assembly code; the end result is then assembled. This whole thing smells like a money grab.
Complaint online
Complaint is up on Justia here, rest of the case docs are posted as well.
Why not to sue back?
It is not cost effective of course, but Google might afford it. Case is ridicules, but Google reputation is not.
This might put the Money Grabber Company out of business eventually and might be a good lesson to others money grabbers.
some secret
If you don’t want someone to know about your algorithm, don’t patent it.
Prior art
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diff#History:
I think the comment “open-source Chrome browser isn’t so open source after all.” was based on misunderstanding the patent dispute, and assumes that chrome was using the actual closed source software in question.
but Id really like to know how google is supposed to update chrome without using their update mechanism. stop infringing, by infringing.
Why don't they get a good old fashioned audit?
I wonder if anyone’s asked for an audit of this company’s books. Such an audit would be able to corroborate a viable business and marketing plan being in place to bring such valuable innovations, including this patent to market.
Re: Why don't they get a good old fashioned audit?
I suspect that the reason nobody has asked for an audit of the company is because business plans and even plans to bring a product to market are simply irrelevant to a patent lawsuit.
Digital managment.
Very clever algorithm that maps all pointers and make them into static variables inside a table for consultation.
Both are using apparently the same idea. But the devil is in the details. The patent says that they make compact diffs turning pointers into entries in a table, but how that is done could make the difference as patents only apply to processes and not ideas from what I understand and that is not much so someone could fill in that part of the argument.
The technical part is easy, both try to get rid of the pointers that get misaligned when code is inserted. Is like getting names in a single word single column of text and putting the names in a box and not counting them as a different line.
example:
Text 1:
george
is
going
to
meet
sarah
Text 2:
george
is
not
going
to
meet
sarah
The old way of doing things would have show as a difference.
not
sarah
the new way would show
not
Please keep suing
I really hope that we’ll see a lot more of this: companies with ridiculous patents suing big companies like Microsoft and Google. Why? Because it’s the only way that the big boys will be persuaded that software patents are a Really Bad Idea, and will abandon their current support for the notion.
“so I’m at a loss as to why it requires a patent”
Because every innovation and any idea that anyone can think of requires a patent, with patents innovation and good ideas would completely die. There would be no advancement whatsoever.
Our patent system is broken. The purpose of patents should be to help advance ideas that would not advance otherwise. The problem is that our broken patent system incorrectly assumes that every single idea that anyone can possibly think of requires a patent or it would not have been thought of and would not have advanced. If we are going to have patents we need a patent system patents ONLY ideas that require patents to advance and that doesn’t patent ideas simply for the sake of patenting ideas. We need a system that encourages as many ideas as possible to be thought of and advanced WITHOUT patents and one that ONLY gives patents to those ideas that absolutely require a patent to advance.
Re: Re:
sp/with patents innovation and good ideas would completely die./without intellectual property innovation and good ideas would completely die.
Re: Re: Re:
No, you mean your business model would completely die. DIE ALREADY!
Re: Re: Re: Re:
Someone needs to have their irony meter checked.
Re: Re:
The fact is that without patents advancement would occur regardless. New ideas would still come out and things would still advance. But our patent system gives just about every idea, including those that do not require a patent to advance, patents and that’s not acceptable. We do not need to give a monopoly to ideas that do not need a monopoly to advance. This causes much more harm than good because monopolies are universally bad for society. They decrease aggregate output and increase price and a lack of competition gives less incentive to innovate since innovation does little to help a monopolist. Our patent system should not assume that every conceivable idea requires a patent to advance because many ideas would advance perfectly well without patents.
and for those stupid morons that want to argue
“That idea is obvious now but it wasn’t obvious then”
My response
You incorrectly assume that all advancement requires patents and that no advancement would ever occur without patents. This simply is not true, advancement will occur without patents and many advancements have occurred without patents.
Re: Re:
and for those stupid morons that want to argue
“That idea is obvious now but it wasn’t obvious then”
My response
You incorrectly assume that all advancement requires patents and that no advancement would ever occur without patents. This simply is not true, advancement will occur without patents and many advancements have occurred without patents.
Your response has nothing to do with the purported argument. Whether technological advancements would occur without patents does not address the issue of whether a claimed invention was obvious at the time it was made.
As an aside, you seem to think that the fundamental question is whether technological advancement would happen without patents. That’s a strawman: few are suggesting that technological advancement would grind to a halt without patents. What IS being argued is that patents SPUR technological advancement, in that they make technological advancement happen more quickly and in greater abundance.
Punk!?
What the punky? Punk! Punk-punky!?
Yep, TechDIRT is the "bad-reporting dept"
“from the bad-reporting dept”
It is nice to see we have some common ground here, because most TechDIRT reporting on patent issues is to put it mildly bad.
“The patent was issued in 2003 “ “It’s difficult to see how anyone could claim with a straight face willful infringement when you just informed them of your patent”
Patents teach others the best mode of an invention. You acknowledge that the patent issued in 2003. Google is a sophisticated company with ready access to the patent database. The published patent is well known, hence willful infringement.
Some inventors have donated use of their inventions for open source. At one time I favored this approach but I have yet to see the open source community so much as say thank you. In fact, the open source community is much like a spoiled teenager who not only fails to appreciate things which are done for them but demands more.
As a result of this nasty mindset I have for several years been discouraging inventors from contributing in any way to open source because the community seems to be made up of crooked ingrates.
The root of the problem is that open source as an industry is based on a profit motive which is facilitated by a loss leader in the form of “free software” which is anything but free.
Open source is a profit based enterprise and as long as someone is making a profit on an inventor’s patent property rights the inventor is entitled to a royality.
Google is currently in the corporate adolescent stage. Like many young successful companies they have developed very big egos and an attitude that they can take liberties with others intellectual property. They have become a parasite on inventors. It has been reported that they have a scorched earth litigation policy. This may work for some time but it is inevitable that eventually they will be handed their head just as has happened with Microsoft and RIM. They chose to live by the sword and anyone who understands history knows how that will end. It is only a matter of time.
Ronald J. Riley,
I am speaking only on my own behalf.
Affiliations:
President – http://www.PIAUSA.org – RJR at PIAUSA.org
Executive Director – http://www.InventorEd.org – RJR at InvEd.org
Senior Fellow – http://www.PatentPolicy.org
President – Alliance for American Innovation
Caretaker of Intellectual Property Creators on behalf of deceased founder Paul Heckel
Washington, DC
Direct (810) 597-0194 / (202) 318-1595 – 9 am to 8 pm EST.
Re: Yep, TechDIRT is the "bad-reporting dept"
“I have for several years been discouraging inventors”
Stop pretending like you’re an inventor. You’re a fraud.
Re: Yep, TechDIRT is the "bad-reporting dept"
“Patents teach others the best mode of an invention.”
You assume that all inventions require a patent to exist and that no innovation can ever occur without patents. This is simply not true.
“Google is a sophisticated company with ready access to the patent database. The published patent is well known, hence willful infringement.”
Companies do not generally look at patents for ideas because patents are generally useless when it comes to innovation. In fact companies often discourage their employees from searching patent databases being that it might cause them to discover a patent on an idea someone in the company already came up with and hence the infringement will be considered intentional. People do not need patents to independently come up with the same idea, often times inventors come up with the same ideas independently. You make the mistake of assuming that all inventions require patents to advance.
Just because you’re so mentally challenged that you think that everything is considered non – obvious to you and just because you think that all ideas need a patent to advance because everyone is as mentally challenged as you and no one would go through the mental effort of advancing an obvious idea without a patent (just because the advancement of obvious ideas is non obvious to you and hence requires a lot of mental effort on your part and hence you feel deserving of a patent or else you will not advance an obvious idea) does not mean that these ideas are non – obvious to others and that technology would never advance without patents. Technology WILL continue to advance without patents and not all ideas require a patent to advance. What the system should focus on is encouraging as many innovations as possible without patents and only grant patents on ideas that require patents to advance instead of what it currently does, grant a patent to every idea no matter how obvious and assume that all ideas require patents.
Re: Yep, TechDIRT is the "bad-reporting dept"
“I have for several years been discouraging inventors from contributing in any way to open source because the community seems to be made up of crooked ingrates.”
Let me ask you this. What are the technical credentials of those you and those “inventors” that you discourage vs those who work for Google and those who contribute to the open source community? By technical I don’t mean law or accounting, I mean engineering or some science degree.
Re: Yep, TechDIRT is the "bad-reporting dept"
also, you consider yourself an inventor. What are your technical credentials vs those who started Google (who have PH.D’s in computer science and such from top institutions). Face it, you’re a poor excuse for an inventor.
Re: Yep, TechDIRT is the "bad-reporting dept"
Oh and I notice that your so insistent on not advancing anything and being lazy that your “pro innovation” website is still obsolete.
“The Anti- American innovation evil doers are still plotting to bring new anti-innovation legislation in the new Congress in 2007 (110th Congress) by way of House Bill HR 1908 and Senate Bill S 1145. “
http://www.piausa.org/
Once again, it’s 2009 buddy, if you can’t even update your stupid website how can we trust that your ideas are intended to advance technology. You just want to live in the past, you fear change, and you want to drag everyone down with you because you don’t like others progressing because you can’t adapt. We shouldn’t stop progress just because you don’t want to change.
Re: Yep, TechDIRT is the "bad-reporting dept"
Prior Art?
Oh, that’s right, you don’t believe in such nonsense
Re: Re: Yep, TechDIRT is the "bad-reporting dept"
Riley would consider it an act of innovation just to update his website. If he does the government should grant him a monopoly on everything. After all, it requires a lot of innovation, creativity, and brainpower to update his website. That’s why his website hasn’t been updated since 2007.
Re: Re: Re: Yep, TechDIRT is the "bad-reporting dept"
He’s too busy updating his signature.
Re: Re: Re:2 Yep, TechDIRT is the "bad-reporting dept"
But that’s innovation. See, he’s providing innovation for others by merely updating his signature.
Re: Yep, TechDIRT is the "bad-reporting dept"
Hint: When “speaking on your own behalf”, don’t provide a list of all your shilling.
Re: Yep, TechDIRT is the "bad-reporting dept"
“At one time I favored this approach but I have yet to see the open source community so much as say thank you.”
Microsoft et al has stolen many ideas from the open source community without so much as a thank you. Tabbed browsing (firefox) came from the open source community and was stolen by IE, combining many commands into one was stolen from linux and put into windows, a lot of the user interface within windows was stolen from linux (and windwos 7 steals a lot of that even more I noticed). Heck, I recently heard a speech from a programmer at Microsoft who admit that some feature, I forgot which one, was taken directly from linux (not the code but the idea) because Microsoft had no idea how to tweak the settings and eventually decided that linux tweaked it correctly. Not so much as a thank you.
Re: Re: Yep, TechDIRT is the "bad-reporting dept"
oh and the feature was a windows 7 feature.
Re: Re: Yep, TechDIRT is the "bad-reporting dept"
and lets not forget that the open source community was the first to adopt the 64 bit architecture and support for multi core processors and motherboards with multiple processors and the open linux et al were the first to adopt networking and the Internet. Microsoft later caught up to linux et al, a lot of innovation came from the open source community and was later stolen by other corporations.
Re: Yep, TechDIRT is the "bad-reporting dept"
also I noticed that on your second link ( http://www.inventored.org/ -> http://us.macmillan.com/flashofgenius ) I can’t even play the trailer on the website. It says “embedding disabled by request.” Apparently the COPYRIGHT holder doesn’t want his trailer embedded on other peoples website.
Re: Re: Yep, TechDIRT is the "bad-reporting dept"
oops
Willful infringement
Willful infringement is prospective, i.e. once you know that you are infringing the patent you are supposed to stop using it. If you keep infringing even know you know that you are doing so, a plaintiff can get triple damages — the theory is that you should be punished for deliberately infringing. You claim it in your complaint because if you don’t, you waive asking for it. A plaintiff’s right to recover willful infringement doesn’t stop as of the date the complaint is filed, but continues as long as the defendant keeps infringing — until trial, at least.
So there is nothing sinister or unusual for Red Bend asking for willful infringement damages in its complaint even though the patent had just issued — indeed, its lawyers would have been at fault for not doing so.
This is, of course, putting aside whether you think their patent is any good or whether Google will ultimately be held at fault.
Re: Willful infringement
So there is nothing sinister or unusual for Red Bend asking for willful infringement damages in its complaint even though the patent had just issued — indeed, its lawyers would have been at fault for not doing so.
Wasn’t suggesting it was sinister — more noting the bad reporting on it.
Nothing Special, Move Along
The patent is so vague as to be almost useless but the basis seems to be that you:
(1) scan program (a) storing all its important chunks in a dictionary and leaving the original as a list of references.
(2) repeat for program (b). The difference between the program is now the difference in their lists of references.
(3) Recurse steps (1) and (2) a few times, using each list of references as if it were a program.
(4) Extract just the differences from the resulting programs, and ship these along with the relevant parts of the dictionary.
If I’m right, they are just applying a trivial data compression algorithm that I “invented” in in a few minutes in about 1980 – and probably thousands of other have invented since because it’s pretty damn obvious – to the process of shipping deltas.
As for the confused issue of “Open Source”, what may be meant is that Google can’t publish a patent-encumbered product under some Open Source licences. However as the parent here applies to the delivery method and not the product itself, I don’t think that matters.
license? you mean model
> This kind of reporting suggests that a patent
> simply wipes out the type of license covering
> a software [project]
Open Source isn’t a licensing method, its a development method. MS has ‘open source’ also. Free Software is the goal here (as in freedom, not cost).
use 'diff' and
use 'diff' and 'patch' algo
If google used the exact scheme from the 1970s diff and patch algorithms even though they do the exact same thing this patent supposedly invented would they still be guilty of infringement. This is not only blatantly obvious but it was already ‘invented’ way back when. I am sure that before IBM invented it, people were keeping paper lists of things (inventory) and comparing that with other lists to look for changes. Just because you add a computer, or the Internet, or a database, or whatever to an existing concept it should not make it patentable.
sorry for the double post, I don’t know why the ‘enter’ key on the subject text box is mapped to submit.
And you consider your reporting to be “good reporting”. That’s funny.
stop the shilling!!!
“We’ve discussed in the past how reporters often contribute to misconceptions about the patent system and patent disputes.”
Yes, like YOU!
Re: stop the shilling!!!
Leave Britney alone !!!
Re: stop the shilling!!!
“Yes, like YOU!”
can you expand on that?
Mike Said:
“so I’m at a loss as to why it requires a patent”
You’re at a loss, just as you are with all the other patents you ever have an opinion about, because you don’t bother to read the ENTIRE patent spec AND the prosecution history yourself. If you did, you would find out EXACTLY what the novel part of the invention actually was which warranted it being granted a patent.
But, you would rather stay clueless and keep you head in the sand and base your entire option about the patent on it’s title or some other “surface” interpretation that 99% of the time does not describe the actual novel aspect of the patent.
Re: Re:
But software patents should not be allowed.
Re: Re:
Feel free to describe why the patent is useful and/or valid, then.
Oh, right, you can’t. My mistake.
Re: Re:
You’re at a loss, just as you are with all the other patents you ever have an opinion about, because you don’t bother to read the ENTIRE patent spec AND the prosecution history yourself. If you did, you would find out EXACTLY what the novel part of the invention actually was which warranted it being granted a patent.
Please, enlighten us.
But, you would rather stay clueless and keep you head in the sand and base your entire option about the patent on it’s title or some other “surface” interpretation that 99% of the time does not describe the actual novel aspect of the patent.
Heh. Ok. Only one of us had his head in the sand. It ain’t me.
I will note, of course, that you fail to explain why this patent is valid. I did, in fact, read through the claims, and as plenty of the other commenters have pointed out, this isn’t even remotely novel or non-obvious (at the time it was done). It’s a joke.
Patents don't spur anything
What drives innovation is conflict.
Take conflict away and people get lazy, they don’t have incentives to create anything, worst give people the ability to stop others from innovating then innovation will halt.
Patents were created to make others more at liberty to show how things get done. Today we don’t need that because to be innovative you have to work with others and there is very little that can be done by few people in a garage.
Re: Patents don't spur anything
Conflict?
And all this time I thought necessity was the mother of invention – silly me.
Stop talking about what you don't understand
Google didn’t think the concept “isn’t even remotely novel or non-obvious” or “a joke” because they boasted publicly just 3 months ago about how great their improvement was. http://dev.chromium.org/developers/design-documents/software-updates-courgette
Unfortunately for Google, someone else had the same idea 10 years ago and patented it.