Google fined over linux patent

Linky

So, what will happen with linux if this affects the kernel, as it seems?

I know about as much of computers as I do the sun, which is totally yellow btw, so can you tell me what in the hell a kernel is?

It's the part of the OS that is basically in charge of everything.

It's the core of the OS.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kernel_%28computing%29

So, if I am reading this right. Google is using a magiccomputerthingy that was made by someone else, but patented by another someone else?

That's not even the half of it, because there is the part where the patent company is not an actual maker of anything, but a legal fiction that claims rights but does nothing but sue.

Oh look TAOCP reference!

I think there existed hash tables before 1997, so the patent is moot.

I don't know a lot about the merits of the case having only read a couple of news pages, but I'm sure there will be a massive counter appeal. This smacks of a standard patent troll - company that only owns patents rather than inventing sues a tech company in the patent troll friendly courts in Texas. However given the threat to everyone who uses Linux (massive number of companies) I think Google will prefer to smack this down rather than cough up a "go away troll" settlement.

I went and did some digging, and apparently the patent in question is extremely vague (from what I could tell, it could just as easily cover std::map in the C++ library!), and the verdict was handed down in a district court that's unusually friendly to patent trolls.

I don't see this actually doing anything but wasting Google's time. They have the money and the will to appeal, and they most certainly will.

It's putting a lot of lawyers to work. just imagine what else they might be up to if they weren't distracted!

It'd be nice/help immensely if they'd stop issuing frivolous patents for things that don't seem to actually be inventions but instead just commonplace ideas.

I mean, a lot of the patents I see being sued over look like, at least to this admitted layman, trying to patent the technique of shading in Photoshop using Multiply or something. They're just bog-standard things that most people who are familiar with the field in question are going to figure out similarly completely independent of each other because they're just the most obvious and logical way of combining things.

edited 22nd Apr '11 5:03:16 PM by Jeysie

I don't see how would it be possible to claim ownership of hashes, when they are a concept essentially inbuilt in mathematics. That's like saying anyone can claim ownership of spherical geometry. Anyway, I'm sure this suing is just a distraction tactic designed to call attention of OSS advocate lawyers to services to "trade" patents, perhaps in order to allow MAFIAA to permeate those groups, as well as Google's, support for unencumbered formats and keep the imposition of H264 as the internet video standard.

Just a reandom thought

Would this make any OS currently manufactured in violation of the patent? I'm not exactly sure, which is why I'm asking

@Silent Reverence: wow, conspiracy theory much? No, I suspect this suit is just what it looks like: some patent trolls got ownership of a dubious patent and are trying to make money from it.

Open-source advocates get stuck in a worldview where everything's about their cause. Don't do it.

Google definitely is fighting back against this, which is encouraging.

And hey look what I found.

Google pretty much has to fight them. Fortunately, if Google wins, they generally make sure the bad patent is gone for everyone.

The granting of bad patents has to stop. Of course, even if it does, patents last for 20 years from filing, so even if no more software patents are allowed, we still have a lot of granted ones to fight.

Apparently, the RedHat guys themselves are fighting back. And the patent is over textbook-case hash tables.

edited 23rd Apr '11 5:30:57 AM by Medinoc