Google Vs. Jarg

Google Vs. Jarg

Google has found itself in a pickle. The giant internet search engine has been sued for using patented technology. The search technology Google uses was patented back in 1997 by Jarg, Corp. This was one year before Google became incorporated. Jarg was created by Michael Belanger and Dr. Kenneth Baclawski. Baclawski, an assistant professor of computer sciences at Northeastern University, began work on the patented technology in 1994. He later patented the technology under U.S. Patent Number 5,694,593. Belanger claims the company has been aware of the copyright infringement for some time now. Jarg had put off filing the law suit because they had no legal representation and had not been able to find the resources to fund one . Now that legal representation has been found, Northeastern University has joined the lawsuit and Vinson & Elkins, the law firm taking the case, has agreed to do so on a contingency basis, meaning Vinson & Elkins will not receive any payment for their services unless Jarg wins the lawsuit. Vinson & Elkins will provide lawyers to fight the case. They will also be assisted by local counsel where the lawsuit was filed. Though Google was incorporated in 1998, Belanger said he and Baclawski had no idea the company might be infringing the patent, until about 2 1/2 years ago. A representative of a Boston-area law firm told Belanger of seeing a presentation by Google that described the company's Web search technology. The database search technology described in the presentation resembled Northeastern's patented technology.

The U.S. Patent titled Distributed Computer Database System and Method is what Baclawski had filed in 1997. Although Jarg itself had not become incorporated until 1998, the court has found that Baclawski had published his work on the patented material in 1994. Jarg claims that Google never took the necessary actions to assure that they were not in violation of an already existing patent. Jarg requests the courts award them for damages and royalties as well as make Google stop using the patented technology. Belanger claims they have no interest in shutting down Google and expects them to be generous enough to pay a normal royalty. A Google spokesman, Jon Murchinson, claims Google is aware of the complaint and believe It to be without merit based on their initial investigation.

The article summarized above was taken from TheMoneyTimes.com. It is titled "Google in Copyright Infringement Row" written by Daisy Sarma. Based on the facts in this article and the information in our text book, I believe that Google will be infringing on Jarg's patent if they are indeed using Jarg's method. Dr. Baclawski developed and patented the technology before Google existed. Our book points out that, patents for software were difficult to get