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Patent Troll Sues Google, AOL Over Search 'Snippets' and Ad Serving Tech

Posted by timothy on from the excuse-me-have-you-seen-my-rent? dept.

First time accepted submitter WindyWonka writes "Google and AOL were sued for patent infringement Thursday, accused of violating two former British Telecom patents via Google's search 'snippets' and by Google AdSense and Advertising.com ad serving technology. Incredibly, the lawsuit by apparent patent troll Suffolk Technologies asserts that every Google search result 'snippet' display violates one patent, and that another really broad server patent is violated every time Google and AOL serve up ads."

16 of 83 comments (clear)

  1. Funding? by andydread · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Who is behind the funding of this Patent Troll?

    1. Re:Funding? by stevew · · Score: 4, Informative

      I looked at the Server patent - it essentially patents download files via the web. It is bogus beyond all recognition! It was filed in 2000 - I would imagine that gopher, or some of the other earlier web technologies take care this patent nicely, i.e.. prior art exist in spades.

      --
      Have you compiled your kernel today??
    2. Re:Funding? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      This appears to be British Telecom - aka BT, the main telecoms provider in the UK. They are a huge organisation that got broken up into smaller separate business units for wholesale, business, retail (internet phone) and network maintenance. They have a large 2000-3000 person R&D (at least there used to be lots of R&D there are few years back, but I'm not so sure now) center at Adastral Park in the county of *Suffolk* (just south of Cambridge/Cambridgeshire in the East of England). I assume either BT has setup Suffolk Technologies, or someone close to them has bought the patents to pursue. If it is BT then it will be a well-funded operation.

      I think the broad server patent is rubbish. But, the snippet patent IMHO is a legitimate patent.

    3. Re:Funding? by Sepodati · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Yeah, the snippets patent actually does look legit. I doubt that Google's process exactly replicates all of their claims, though, even though the end result looks the same. Without knowing Google's algorithm, I guess ST has to assume Google may be using the same process or figure their lawyers can make a case regardless of reality.

    4. Re:Funding? by Sepodati · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I think the difference is in incorporating an "identfiication signal" in the original request that is then processed and determines the file to return. So it's not just requesting "foo.txt" and returning it. But, I would think any program that processes GET or POST data and returns a file based on those "identification signals" would be a violation or prior art for this "invention".

    5. Re:Funding? by Qzukk · · Score: 4, Informative

      The patent covers using the page the request was made from to decide what file you should get. The original patent was filed in the UK in April 1996 and discusses the HTTP protocol and the referrer address, but RFC 1945 was published a month later and defined the HTTP protocol (including the misspelling of referer). Perhaps this information was added to the US version of the patent when it was filed in March 1997.

      This seems like something they could get a few bucks each out of the various blogs that forbid hotlinking by serving up goatse whenever the referer URL for a picture is some other site. But I guess they can get more than a few bucks out of Google and AOL, even if it's not really clear how they infringe on the patent.

      --
      If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
    6. Re:Funding? by rtfa-troll · · Score: 4, Interesting

      So yeah, my apache anti-leaching script in the 90s (That substituted a photo of an erect dick whenever an image was leached) was a total patent thievery acomplished via time-travel or something.

      Did you publish it? If so, push the link to Google's lawyers (dropping it on an anti-patent site like Groklaw will do, if you don't want to talk directly to Google). Everyone will appreciate that. It might seem stupid, but it can be really hard to find examples of obvious ideas from the distant past.

      --
      =~ s,(.*),<sarcasm>$1</sarcasm>,g if any_point_you_wish();
    7. Re:Funding? by Vitani · · Score: 3, Interesting

      So it was granted in 2000, and they sat on it for 12 years, let other people use their "invention" and only _then_ do they sue. Maybe patents should be like trademarks(?) - if you don't defend them, you lose them? It's not like they could argue they didn't know Google or AOL existed until now ...

  2. Enough already by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This never-ending series of X sues Y articles bores the shit out of me. Constantly presenting them implies the average technology reader does, or should, have an abiding interest in these corporate hijinks, these capitalist dick-length spats, the outcomes of which are of concern chiefly to powerful, monied interests and their lawyers.

    The degree to which our attention is focused on this garbage shows how much our souls are being sucked dry. Science, math, even technology offers much more than this kind of crap.

    1. Re:Enough already by MrLint · · Score: 4, Funny

      You sir/madam are overly optimistic.

  3. Snippet patent prior art by DRichardHipp · · Score: 3, Informative

    Showing the use of a search term in context (i.e. showing a "snippet") is a feature of a concordance - a kind of document that has been produced manually for hundreds of years. So there seems to be lots of prior art.

    1. Re:Snippet patent prior art by gmhowell · · Score: 3, Informative

      Showing the use of a search term in context (i.e. showing a "snippet") is a feature of a concordance - a kind of document that has been produced manually for hundreds of years.
      So there seems to be lots of prior art.

      Ahh, but this patent seems to use the 'on a computer' trump card, thus invalidating whatever medieval concordance you may reference.

      --
      Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
    2. Re:Snippet patent prior art by SuperSlacker64 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Why is there not a 'Sad Truth' moderation?

  4. Re:Patents by geminidomino · · Score: 4, Insightful

    That's not the problem. Patents already do expire in X number of years.

    The problem is twofold:

    1. "X" is an eternity in an industry where "obsolete" means "more than six months old"

    2. The patents are being granted on utter bullshit 'inventions,' bogus 'business processes,' and algorithms, and are not properly researched or vetted before being rubber stamped.

    Your solution really doesn't solve anything.

  5. Re:Lawyers by viperidaenz · · Score: 4, Funny

    But there are so many of them they'll increase the sea levels... unless the increased mass pushes the sea floor down further making the oceans deeper...

  6. They've patented math... by rayharris · · Score: 3, Informative

    If you go read the patent, there are two things to note.

    First, is that the patent provides very explicit flow charts that describe the algorithm that generates the summary. All Google and AOL have to do to win is show that they generate their summaries using a different algorithm.

    Second, is that the patent is for an algorithm to calculate which section should be shown in a summary. You cannot patent algorithms. The patent shouldn't have been awarded in the first place.

    I hate the USPTO and I hold a (hardware) patent.

    --
    I void warranties.