Xerox Files Patent Suit Against Google, Yahoo

[engine]

Xerox Files Patent Suit Against Google, Yahoo [informationweek.com]

Xerox Corporation on Friday filed a patent infringement lawsuit against Google, Yahoo, and YouTube over disputed Internet search and e-commerce technology.
The document management company alleges that Google has infringed upon its patent "System for automatically generating queries" with its AdWords and AdSense software.

It also claims that Google Maps and Google video violate a different patent, "Method and apparatus for the integration of information and knowledge," which has to do with updating Web pages based on user reviews.
Yahoo, Xerox claims, has infringed on its query patent with Yahoo Search Marketing, Yahoo Publisher Network and Y!Q Contextual Search. And the company further claims that Yahoo Shopping steps on its integration patent.

[kaz]

"These claims are entirely without merit, and we'll vigorously defend ourselves against them." - Google

There are two sides to every side of the story.

Whatever xerox's side is - lawyers will figure that out - I find it hard to believe this is something that Xerox just became aware of based on the broad scope and long run these web applications have had.

boo on xerox

[Demaestro]

Wreaks of Xerox trying to do a cash grab.

Unless they have an in-production working model of these "technologies" then that is all I will ever think this is.

Show me where Xerox has implemented their patent in a real world example then maybe I will have some sympathy. But if all they have is a patent and haven't done anything with it then they are just another techno patent troll who needs to go away.

Develop your products or get out of the way of people who will.

The fact that a company can patent a way of doing something in code and then never develop it... then sit back and wait for another company to spend millions developing something similar, then sue is insanity.

I find it hard to believe this is something that Xerox just became aware of

According to the article they were in talks with the companies for quite a while trying to get them to license this stuff from Xerox, when that failed they sued.

[edited by: Demaestro at 7:23 pm (utc) on Feb 23, 2010]

[bwakkie]

xerox ... isn't that a printer company?! ;-)

[zeus]

yes and I mean they where in financial troubles for some time, it must be a pain with all those lawsuits for google where its only the money that play a roll.

[StoutFiles]

I don't understand how one can get a patent on something so broad as "System for automatically generating queries".

[explorador]

bwakkie, yes, but they also invented several things we use everyday. Mac actually based their success on Xerox inventions like the mouse. (I'm not defending them)

cash grab... maybe, those things have been out there for a long time, is surprisingly late to claim I think

[travelin cat]

Looks like Xerox is repeating PARC history:

From Wikipedia [en.wikipedia.org]:

The first successful commercial GUI product was the Apple Macintosh, which was heavily inspired by PARC's work; Xerox was allowed to buy pre-IPO stock from Apple in exchange for engineer visits and an understanding that Apple would create a GUI product. Much later, in the midst of the Apple v. Microsoft lawsuit in which Apple accused Microsoft of violating its copyright by appropriating the use of the "look and feel" of the Macintosh GUI, Xerox also sued Apple on the same grounds. The lawsuit was dismissed because Xerox had waited too long to file suit, and the statute of limitations had expired

[Edge]

Well, I think Al Gore said he invented the Internet. So, we are all going to be sued by him eventually.

[graeme_p]

Al Gore never said he invented the internet. He claimed credit that he appears to deserve. To quote Vint Cerf:

As Vice President Gore promoted building the Internet both up and out, as well as releasing the Internet from the control of the government agencies
that spawned it. He served as the major administration proponent for continued investment in advanced computing and networking and private sector initiatives such as Net Day.

As for Xerox, they seem to be just yet another company in trouble that has become a patent troll. They deserve credit for all the stuff developed at PARC, but its their own fault they failed to commercialise it successfully (and they did benefit from what Apple commercialised).

[JS_Harris]

System for automatically generating queries

Laughable, Xerox doesn't own a copyright to this... if they did they'd even own my brain because I do that all the time too.

[httpwebwitch]

>> doesn't own a copyright >> they'd even own my brain

it's not copyright, it's patent.

You mustn't make hasty judgements based on the title of the patent. You have to read the thing. The patent is more specific than "System for automatically generating queries" - it's an actual invention, not a vague string of adjectives and nouns.

[Demaestro]

it's an actual invention

Do you know if they actually developed it though? I honestly don't know if they did or not.

For me that is the heart of the case.

Imagine if someone patented "a portable medical device capable of kick-starting a heart" then never developed it. Then when someone else builds a heart defibrillator they get sued and the defibrillator is forced out of the market.

Advancements benefit society. I am not against patents, but it should be like anything else. If you don't use it, you lose it. You shouldn't be allowed to sit back and wait while someone else does all the hard work of actually building a product only to have you swoop in and claim infringement.

[icedowl]

xerox ... isn't that a printer company?! ;-)

Yes, but they've made much more than just printers although printers and copiers have been their bread and butter. I worked for them back in 1979/1980 using their mainframe computer, a Xerox Sigma7. They were also extremely proud of their optics that were used to get one of the first (if not the first) great photos of Jupiter. That photo was plastered all over the walls where I worked in Pasadena.

I honestly don't know what all they were experimenting with at that time or since, but they always had many new projects and inventions being developed and tested. And that was just at one of their many locations.

[motorhaven]

Biggest problem with Xerox is they copy everything.

[graeme_p]

Advancements benefit society. I am not against patents, but it should be like anything else. If you don't use it, you lose it.

Use it or lose it would be good, as would a specific provision against deliberate use of submarine patent.

That still leaves a need for reform, to limit patents to genuine new ideas.

Of course,all this assumes that patents are needed at all. Advancements benefit society, but the evidence suggests (read some academic studies) that advancement would happen at least as fast without patents (because there are other incentives for doing R & D such as being first to market).

[TheMadScientist]

Biggest problem with Xerox is they copy everything.

LMAO!