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NetApp Hits Sun With Patent Infringement Lawsuit
jcatcw writes "Computerworld reports, "Network Appliance Inc. today announced that it has filed a patent infringement lawsuit against Sun Microsystems Inc. seeking unspecified compensatory damages and an injunction that would prohibit Sun from developing or distributing products based on its ZFS file system technology. The suit, filed in the U.S. District Court in Lufkin, Texas, charges that the Sun ZFS technology infringes on seven NetApp patents pertaining to data processing systems and related software.""
How does the patent in this case "promote the useful arts and sciences." Patents don't do anything to benefit the public. Patents were fine in an era before the need for capital became its own barrier to entry in a given market, but, any more, they are not only a relic, but a dangerous, anti-competitive one. Would it be a troll to say anyone who is in favor of patents is really in favor of oligarchy?
This is my sig.
How you like that?
How we know is more important than what we know.
It would be a damn shame if development on it were halted because of silly patents.
The only thing that matters here is whether prior art can be forund for WAFL.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
...appears on The Register. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/09/05/netapp_sue s_sun_over_zfs/
This actually mentions the specific technologies NetApp is alleging are infringed, and contains a link to the actual complaint, which lists the details of NetApp's allegations.
Cursory reading suggests these are somewhat reasonable patents--they solve non-obvious critical issues in terms of having data synchronized across multiple images. We're not talking about "One-Click Ordering" here.
That said, they filed in East Texas, which is a notorious district for patent trolling, which doesn't help them appear on the side of the angels IMO.
It sounds more like both Sun and NetApp are infringing on each others patents, and Sun simply wanted to formally resolve this in order to be on the safe side. This article seems awfully one-sided though, and the way the quote is paraphrased, it looks like the author is more interested in dragging Sun's name through the mud than presenting the facts.
I don't blame them, really. If you are a professionnal blogger (read former print journalist) the more traffic you can generate for your site, the more you make. Get it posted on /. or digg or wherever and watch the traffic flow.
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
I hope somehow that sanity prevails in the trial location. Network Applications Inc filed their case in Lufkin TX.
/ wtr_16280,300,p1.html?a=f
Lufkin is very long way from anywhere. I live in Dallas TX and Lufkin is a long 3hr 18m trip South and East from here. Yet Network Applications Inc is a Sunnyvale, Calif.-based company. Both Sun and Network Applications Inc are based in California.
Formerly the haven for patent pirates was Marshall TX. The same thing is probably going on in Lufkin TX.
Check out this article. "A Haven for Patent Pirates In one federal court in East Texas, plaintiffs have such an easy time winning patent-infringement lawsuits against big-tech companies that defendants often choose to settle rather than fight."
http://www.technologyreview.com/InfoTech-Software
May the company with the best case win,
Jim
I recall when early releases of ext3 appeared someone suggested NetApp might take issue with it due to IP. Daniel Phillips got rather heated about the matter. Apparently NetApp didn't pursue anyone over it.
At least Sun has the means to defend itself.
Lurking at the bottom of the gravity well, getting old
Here is the original complaint (PDF): http://www.netapp.com/go/ipsuit/spider-complaint.p df .
... the first commercial file system to use the copy-on-write tree of blocks approach to file system consistency." One of the first patents I filed at NetApp describes this "copy-on-write tree of blocks" technique in detail.
And here is NetApp's boss blog: http://blogs.netapp.com/dave/ (quoted below):
This morning, NetApp filed an IP (intellectual property) lawsuit against Sun. It has two parts. The first is a "declaratory judgment", asking the court to decide whether we infringe a set of patents that Sun claims we do. The second says that Sun infringes several of our patents with its ZFS technology.
How did we get here?
Like many large technology companies, Sun has been using its patent portfolio as a profit center. About 18 months ago, Sun's lawyers contacted NetApp with a list of patents they say we infringe, and requested that we pay them lots of money. We responded in two ways. First, we closely examined their list of patents. Second, we identified the patents in our portfolio that we believe Sun infringes.
With respect to Sun's patent claims, our lawsuit explains that we do not infringe, and - in fact - that they are not even valid. As a result, we don't think we should be paying Sun millions of dollars.
On the flip side, our suit points out that Sun's ZFS appears to infringe several of NetApp's WAFL patents. It looks like ZFS was a conscious reimplementation of our WAFL filesystem, with little regard to intellectual property rights. Here's what creators of ZFS have to say: "The file system that has come closest to our design principles, other than ZFS itself, is WAFL
We filed suit against Sun because after we pointed out the WAFL patents, their lawyers stopped getting back to us. The first part of our suit is a declaratory judgment. It's complicated, but the basic idea is that Sun claims we infringe their patents, so we are requesting a trial to show that's not true. In essence, a declaratory judgment calls their bluff. It allows us to force a legal conclusion, rather than leaving this threat hanging over our heads. The second part is a complaint against Sun for infringing several WAFL patents with ZFS.
Again, from NetApp's boss blog: http://blogs.netapp.com/dave/2007/06/how_the_paten t_.html (I really like this guy, having read 2 articles):
Don't patents ever protect your good ideas?! In theory, they should, but in practice it doesn't usually work that way. Suppose your small company wants to protect its ideas against a big company. Filing suit will accelerate the cross-licensing negotiation, and you'll probably end up paying. Better to let sleeping dogs lie. Patent battles between small companies work poorly because they are so expensive and take so long. Better to fight it out in the marketplace. Big companies suing small companies have a harder time than you'd imagine, because the courts recognize that an incorrect decision, especially against a startup, can cause irreversible damage. Courts are reluctant to impose injunctions, even if the patents really do apply. In the case of two big companies, both almost always violate each other's patents, so they end up cross licensing. (I'm not saying that patents never help to protect good ideas. If someone steals your patented idea, it's perfectly reasonable to go after them. I'm just saying that it seldom works out as well as you might hope.)
I know that some people are so frustrated with the patent system that they want nothing to do with it. The problem is, there's no good way to opt-out.
Patents are a mechanism for recouping an investment into research, which may or may not pay off. For example, prior to the successful invention, an inventor may have ten or hundreds of failures, each of which cost time and money. Inventors may have borrowed money to fund research, in which case the lender of the money will be expecting that money back (plus interest). It would be unfair to the inventor if he received ZERO reimbursement for a successful invention while others, such as manufacturers, simply plundered his work.
The current implementation of the patent system in the United States is definitely in need of an overhaul, but the idea of patents in general is still a good one. I would propose a system whereby an individual or corporation could apply for a certain number of patents per year at a certain fee. If the individual/corporation applies for more patents within the year, then the fee would increase for each extra application.
Normally, I would jump on the editor(s) more than the submitter. If a submitter's is *less* interested in getting stories of interest to the community posted and more interested in pulling traffic to their site, then it is the editor's job to recognise this over time and take it into account in their decision. IMHO, anyway.
But in this case, Carpenter has decided to preach about the submission system. She has a conflict on interest in this regard - she wants fewer people to have a say in whether her story is accepted yet doesn't declare her posting motivations. So fsck her - she's not being straight up in about her own motives when she questions those of others. She says:
All it takes to vote is a user account with a valid email. How many of the new account holders are part of viral marketing scams? There are probably people there now who are being paid for submissions or for votes.Yeah, probably there are people being paid Joyce. Ya figure? How 'bout a statement on *your* motivations?
Her full comment is at the URL below. Be aware that you're generating ad revenue going there ...
http://www.computerworld.com/blogs/node/5550[17] Leary, T., White, C., Wood, P. R., Bhabha, W. D., and Wirth, N. Lambda calculus considered harmful. In Proceedings
To be fair, Sun did start the patent trolling.
I have a F760 fiber channel filer that was made back in 1999 running a WAFL (ontap 6.x now) OS. Funny how Sun didn't 'notice' the infringement until they made their own version of WAFL http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZFS in 2005. Even funnier that the creators of ZFS claim that WAFL is the "closest" file system to their own. All we have to do is look at the dates here people. Netapp has been using WAFL for almost a decade in production systems. I'm no fan of Netapp because they want to charge for copies of software that I already bought years ago (corrupt disks) but I hope Sun eats a crow for trying to claim infringement on a system that has been in use for several years.
The filer is OLD!
Except that you are clearly ignorant about NetApp snapshots. They are very different from snapshots from other providers. I recently evaluated SANs from HP, EMC, and NetApp. NetApp was the most original and offered a lot of unique features including their snapshot technology. It's very non-obvious their implementation of it.
Here's a link to educate(PDF)
And another Bunch of white papers explaining why Oracle went with NetApp storage. There is a similar list for GoDaddy
NetApp is not SCO, they are only acting because Sun threatened them. They are most innovative big company I've seen in recent years. Their WAFL implementation is pretty damned impressive especially when combined with Flexclone and their other Snapshot products.
That's the whole point. If I invent a product, chances are, in order to really get it out, I will probably wind up infringing on someone else's patent in order to get a complete solution.
For example, let's say I have a revolutionary new programming language. Great stuff, but, ultimately, it will need a bunch of existing technologies to make it work. I'll need parse trees, string manipulations, code generation, and hey, why not an IDE, all of which are covered by a bazillion patents already.
So, if I bring my product to market, the best I can possibly hope for is a cross licensing agreement with a major player, and that in turn, means they can crush me. Or, they can work around my patent in some way, still get the feature, and crush me. Patents don't protect ideas, unless you have a lot of very good patent attorneys and those cost big bucks.
In the world of machines, this doesn't happen. If I invent a new kind of a screw, its pretty obvious that the screw is a patentable thing. But software doesn't exist at that level of componentry and most likely never will. It simply can't. Software wants to integrate and to some extent, that makes it unique from the physical world. You don't need to integrate a particular kind of screw into every single socket and with every single tool, but ultimately, with software, you do wind up having to talk to every kind of protocol, database, and GUI, and in doing so, you wind up flying into a hailstorm of patents.
Seriously, when's the last time anyone has actually checked to see if they infringe before they write something? Only a big company can really afford to do it. Face it, the idea of a little guy with a software patent is a myth, 95% of the time, and its simply not worth the cost to the rest of us - even if we work in a big corporation.
This is my sig.
I doubt this will actually come to trial. I suspect NetApp is just playing the MAD card here to come to some kind "I'm OK, you're OK" cross-licensing deal. As TFA notes, Sun opened this can of worms by claiming NetApp was infringing on Sun patents. If they'd left well enough alone, they wouldn't be getting sued now. When all is said and done, they'll probably be back at their prior status quo. Sun is schizo; they don't know whether to open-source everything they've got, or sue someone over everything they've got :p
No. Go read NetApp's complaint, which enumerates the patents Sun claims NetApp is infringing and NetApp claims Sun is infringing, then look up the patents at the US Patent and Trademark Office patent search-by-number page.
So lemme get this straight: a modern filesystem designed and engineered with a specific purpose, capability- and feature-set outperforms an older, more modestly-specced general-purpose filesystem designed with smaller volumes in mind in tests of such capabilities and feature sets?
Say it ain't so!
NetApp says SUN's lawyers forced them into a corner and tried to extort license fees
SUN says that NetApp tried to force the patents from them first and they boo-booed them.
Ah... we might not know who did what first, but I'm definitely annoyed that the lawsuite between two CALIFORNIAN companies is filed in TEXAS court by NetApp... no prizes for guessing that that court is a haven for patent trolls, so I'm more inclined to believe Sun's story here.
- mritunjai
Ideas are cheap. Patents are not.
If he has no cash to build a prototype, how is he going to pay for a patent portfolio?
In the UK, it costs £200 to have a patent processed by the Patent Office, but there is an additional (approx) £3000 to have your patent drafted/checked by an agent against existing patents and translated into legalese. This £3000 is for each country that you want to apply for a patent. 20 countries, approx £60,000. Minimum. If you don't apply worldwide, the big guy, will simply take your patent and build and sell your product in the rest of the world.
Then, once you have your patent. The big guy sets his reverse engineering team on it, they find a slightly different way of doing the same job, and all your patents are useless. Go ahead, just try and sue that multi billion dollar organisation, see what happens to your house, job and family.
If you're a brilliant inventor with no money, you're pretty much fucked unless you can license your technology to a someone with deep pockets and who are reasonably honourable. Patents protect large organisations who can afford to roll them out worldwide... And patent lawyer's jobs.
They are not there for the small fry.
Deleted
Anyone who has studied filesystems in depth knows about NetApp's WAFL, that NetApp has defended its patents, and that ZFS uses a lot of ideas from WAFL. Questions about ZFS violating WAFL patents came up on LKML months ago, and probably earlier elsewhere. People have been wondering why Linux doesn't have anything like ZFS, and a large part of the answer to that is patents; The Tux2 filesystem would have been a lot like ZFS but was stopped due to patent grumblings. I wish Sun luck in overturning the patents, since that would help everyone, but this lawsuit should not come at a surprise to anyone.
"Patentium Obliviatae!"
This could be corporate FUD, who knows. But if this is true, I wish Sun well in crushing Netapp.
[.snip-]
Thank You, Network Appliance
We held an investor and analyst conference today in New York City. All in all, a very positive day, lots of momentum and enthusiasm for where we're headed (and apprecation for the progress we've made - new product launches, and all).
In one of my first investor calls after the event, a large shareholder surprised me though, with, "why do you think NetApps is trying to kill off ZFS?" Er... what? I was totally stunned - it was the first I'd heard that Network Appliance was suing Sun.
My first response was that NetApps probably needs to read this post carefully - talking about the futility of litigation as a mechanism for proprietary companies to stifle the rise of open source competition.
Now having had a chance to read some of the statements their CEO made, here are some updates.
First, Sun did not approach NetApps about licensing any of Sun's patents and never filed complaints against NetApps or demanded anything. ]
NetApps first approached StorageTek behind the cover of a third party intermediary (yes, it sounds weird, doesn't it?) seeking to purchase STK patents. After Sun acquired STK, we were not willing to sell the patents, We've always been willing to license them. But instead of engaging in licensing discussions, NetApp decided to file a suit to invalidate them. To be clear, we never filed a complaint or threatened to do so, nor did anyone, to the best of my knowledge, in the ZFS community.
We're all focused on innovation and winning customers, not litigation.
Second, a word on patents - we use our patent portfolio to protect communities, and indemnify customers - you need only look back to our settlement with Kodak when they attacked the Java community. (That case was heard in Rochester, New York, Kodak's home town, which is a tad different than the East Texas venue Net App appears to have chosen.)
Finally, and perhaps most importantly (again, read here for why), I'd like to thank our friends at NetApps for ensuring every single customer in their installed base is aware of the outstanding economics offered by ZFS as a file system and storage virtualization platform. Please feel free to (learn more here) and get a free trial Thumper storage device here. At $1.50 per gigabyte - open source storage is about a third the price of competitive offerings, with better performance.
And Sun indemnifies its customers, so I'd encourage all interested parties to compare the economics of ZFS and Thumper to what you're currently forced to pay - the savings are absolutely shocking.
The rise of the open source community cannot be stifled by proprietary vendors. I guess not everyone's learned that lesson.
Posted on 05:00AM Sep 06, 2007
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