Developers do themselves, their code, and their users a disservice if they lack some understanding of intellectual property law. It can be complicated, but it isn't rocket science.
In the United States, Google is protected by the "first to invent<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_to_file_and_first_to_invent>" principle: they can safely publish anything they want about their invention prior to applying for a patent if they can prove they came up with the invention first. As others have pointed out, it isn't something to panic over. This is Google, not Rambus. It would be nice to see Google proactively and explicitly say "We're not going to enforce this patent." But this patent and a lot of other software and business process patents could be in danger of being summarily overturned, depending on how the US Supreme Court rules in the Bilski case. It's possible they wanted to acquire this patent before that ruling, since it would give them standing to challenge a lot of potentially unfavorable outcomes. On Wed, Jan 20, 2010 at 4:07 PM, brien colwell <[email protected]> wrote: > >> Personally, it > seems like they gave away too much information before they had the > patent. > > I'm not a patent lawyer, but I'd expect they submitted the patent > application or a provisional before they submitted their academic paper or > other public disclosure. > > > > > On Wed, Jan 20, 2010 at 12:09 PM, Edward Capriolo <[email protected] > >wrote: > > > 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. > > >> > > > > > >
