It is likely that Google filed the patent as a matter of record for their own protection - to make sure someone else could not do the same and put them at risk for a patent violation suit.
Bill -----Original Message----- From: 松柳 [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Wednesday, January 20, 2010 3:04 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: Google has obtained the patent over mapreduce Just want to ask, how about AWS? Many services/programms runing on AWS are based on M/R mechanism. Does this mean, they owners of these softeware may be targeted in law, How about Amazon itself? Song 2010/1/20 Ravi <[email protected]> > Do you mean to say companies like yahoo and facebook are taking risk? > > On Wed, Jan 20, 2010 at 11:06 PM, Edward Capriolo <[email protected] > >wrote: > > > On Wed, Jan 20, 2010 at 12:23 PM, Raymond Jennings III > > <[email protected]> wrote: > > > I am not a patent attorney either but for what it's worth - many times > a > > patent is sought solely to protect a company from being sued from > another. > > So even though Hadoop is out there it could be the case that Google has > no > > intent of suing anyone who uses it - they just wanted to protect > themselves > > from someone else claiming it as their own and then suing Google. But > yes, > > the patent system clearly has problems as you stated. > > > > > > --- On Wed, 1/20/10, Edward Capriolo <[email protected]> wrote: > > > > > >> From: Edward Capriolo <[email protected]> > > >> Subject: Re: Google has obtained the patent over mapreduce > > >> To: [email protected] > > >> Date: Wednesday, January 20, 2010, 12:09 PM > > >> Interesting situation. > > >> > > >> I try to compare mapreduce to the camera. Let argue Google > > >> is Kodak, > > >> Apache is Polaroid, and MapReduce is a Camera. Imagine > > >> Kodak invented > > >> the camera privately, never sold it to anyone, but produced > > >> some > > >> document describing what a camera did. > > >> > > >> Polaroid followed the document and produced a camera and > > >> sold it > > >> publicly. Kodak later patents a camera, even though no one > > >> outside of > > >> Kodak can confirm Kodak ever made a camera before > > >> Polaroid. > > >> > > >> Not saying that is what happened here, but google releasing > > >> the GFS > > >> pdf was a large factor in causing hadoop to happen. > > >> Personally, it > > >> seems like they gave away too much information before they > > >> had the > > >> patent. > > >> > > >> The patent system faces many problems including this 'back > > >> to the > > >> future' issue. Where it takes so long to get a patent no > > >> one can wait, > > >> by the time a patent is issued there are already multiple > > >> viable > > >> implementations of a patent. > > >> > > >> I am no patent layer or anything, but I notice the phrase > > >> "master > > >> process" all over the claims. Maybe if a piece of software > > >> (hadoop) > > >> had a "distributed process" that would be sufficient to say > > >> hadoop > > >> technology does not infringe on this patent. > > >> > > >> I think it would be interesting to look deeply at each > > >> claim and > > >> determine if hadoop could be designed to not infringe on > > >> these > > >> patents, to deal with what if scenarios. > > >> > > >> > > >> > > >> On Wed, Jan 20, 2010 at 11:29 AM, Ravi < > [email protected]> > > >> wrote: > > >> > Hi, > > >> > I too read about that news. I don't think that it > > >> will be any problem. > > >> > However Google didn't invent the model. > > >> > > > >> > Thanks. > > >> > > > >> > On Wed, Jan 20, 2010 at 9:47 PM, Udaya Lakshmi <[email protected]> > > >> wrote: > > >> > > > >> >> Hi, > > >> >> As an user of hadoop, Is there anything to > > >> worry about Google obtaining > > >> >> the patent over mapreduce? > > >> >> > > >> >> Thanks. > > >> >> > > >> > > > >> > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > @Raymond > > > > Yes. I agree with you. > > > > As we have learned from SCO->linux. Corporate users can become the > > target of legal action not the technology vendor. This could scare a > > large corporation away from using hadoop. They take a risk knowing > > that they could be targeted just for using the software. > > >
