Space Data Lawsuit Has Alphabet's Project Loon In Jeopardy (wired.com)

mirandakatz writes: When a small company called Space Data sued Alphabet's Project Loon last summer, not much came of it. But last month, Space Data scored a major win: It got the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to cancel most of one of Project Loon's foundational patents, and say that Space Data came up with the idea first. That means it can now file for an injunction, and get Project Loon to stop using its internet-beaming balloons. At Backchannel, Mark Harris has dug into court records to present the full story of how Alphabet, which is currently suing Uber over trade secrets, came to be accused of doing exactly the same thing.

Comments

I know what's really happening.

[Chas]

Someone's trying to get bought for an exorbitant price...

Summary missing key fact

[aaarrrgggh]

Google attempted to acquire or partner with Space Data in 2008. Makes this look less like Google doing the right thing.

Re:Summary missing key fact

[LeftCoastThinker]

Google spun up Alphabet specifically so they could do shitty corporate raider things like this without Joe sixpack knowing it was Google (violating their pledge to "do no evil"). They basically did the exact thing that Uber did to them. They would also do it to you if you had something they wanted, the difference is apparently Space Data has enough capital to sue them and win on the merits. I hope they get big damages and a public apology from Google on the Google home search page for a month. "We're sorry for being shitty thieves and stealing Space Data's IP." Wouldn't that be a nice punishment for being shitty thieves.

Re:This is why we can't have nice things

[Z00L00K]

And if not implemented then the idea shall end up in Public Domain.

There are way too many patents for useless and unused crap out there.