USPTO Grants Google a Patent On MapReduce

theodp writes "Two years ago, David DeWitt and Michael Stonebraker deemed MapReduce a major step backwards (here are the original paper and a defense of it) that 'represents a specific implementation of well known techniques developed nearly 25 years ago.' A year later, the pair teamed up with other academics and eBay to slam MapReduce again. But the very public complaints didn't stop Google from demanding a patent for MapReduce; nor did it stop the USPTO from granting Google's request (after four rejections). On Tuesday, the USPTO issued U.S. Patent No. 7,650,331 to Google for inventing Efficient Large-Scale Data Processing."

Comments

Re:Defensive patent

[ClosedSource]

"This is why IBM takes out so many patents too. Most of them are "defensive" patents."

Yes. Let's have a toast to all the prolific patent-holders and their "defensive" patents. I'll pour the Kool-Aid.

Re:US patent office workers should be ashamed...

[BitZtream]

What does Open source have to do with patents? Nothing.

You seem to be confusing prior art with open source, which they have no real relation to each other. It doesn't matter if Hadoop did it and told everyone about it. What matters is who come up with the idea first, they don't even have to implement it!

As for stupid, well you might want to take a look in the mirror for several reasons. A) You don't know what you're talking about. B) I'm willing to bet pretty much everyone you called 'stupid' makes more money and has a much more comfortable lifestyle than you do, mostly due to A.