|
|
| Oracle v. Google - The '720 Patent In Play In Reexam |
 |
|
Tuesday, August 09 2011 @ 09:00 AM EDT
|
You will recall that Oracle filed a response to the Office Action issued by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office in the reexamination of U.S. Patent No. 7,426,720 (Case No. 95/001,560). At the end of that article we stated:
What will be interesting is whether any of the subsequent prior art that Google has now brought to the attention of the court will have an impact on this or the other reexaminations. By Google filing those further documents with the court, Oracle is now under an obligation to assure that the examiner in each of the reexaminations is aware of those documents, as well, even if Google does not file them with the USPTO.
Well, we don't have to speculate any longer about those documents being provided to the USPTO, at least with respect to the '720 patent. Google has provided them.
In a response filed by Google to Oracle's response to the Office Action, Google has now laid out its side of the countering arguments to Oracle's response with supporting cases. Here are the key points raised by Google:
- But for the addition of a "copy-on-write" limitation added after a final rejection during the original examination, the patent would never have been granted. So the "copy-on-write" limitation is critical to any view of the patent claims, and it is this feature that was supposed to be novel.
- "Copy-on-write" was well known in the art long before the '720 patent came along (the '720 application was filed December 22, 2003), a point which Oracle has admitted. To quote Google:
". . . the copy-on-write technology central to alleged novelty of the '720 patent was present in most Unix operating systems as early as 1994, an was widely-known in the art at least as early as 1988; and 3) Patent Owner now admits that Bach discloses the purportedly novel feature."
Given the typical pace of development in information technology, "copy-on-write" was ancient history at the time Oracle (Sun) claimed it to be novel.
- Oracle's response was nothing but "shuck-and-jive", intended to distract the USPTO from the real issue.
Google proceeds to rip apart each of the Oracle arguments, providing substantial detail to support Google's position. In conclusion, Google asks the USPTO to make its Office Action final because of Oracle's failure to adequately refute the position taken by the examiner.
Anyone feeling the sand shift beneath Oracle's feet?
[N.B. - In deference to our readers who have asked not to be exposed to specifics of the various patents at issue, I have not reproduced
Google's response as text. However, I am willing to do so should you wish. In the meantime, I encourage those of you with an understanding of operating systems and virtual machines to read the Google response. It is quite thorough.]
|
|
|
|
| Authored by: sabre23t on Tuesday, August 09 2011 @ 08:04 PM EDT |
| So they can be fixed [ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: sabre23t on Tuesday, August 09 2011 @ 08:05 PM EDT |
| Please make links the clicky kind. [ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: sabre23t on Tuesday, August 09 2011 @ 08:06 PM EDT |
| Please make links the clicky kind. [ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, August 09 2011 @ 08:54 PM EDT |
Could you at least make a link to Googles Response, Or put in the Archives with
a here it is message.[ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: pem on Tuesday, August 09 2011 @ 09:26 PM EDT |
| All the prior art you need is right here, in an
article explaining how to tune your apache server when you are using perl, by
preloading perl and several perl modules.
[ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, August 10 2011 @ 03:37 AM EDT |
". . . the copy-on-write technology central to alleged novelty
of the '720 patent was present in most Unix operating systems as early as 1994,
an was widely-known in the art at least as early as 1988; and 3) Patent Owner
now admits that Bach discloses the purportedly novel feature."
My
copy of Bach is marked: Copyright (C) 1986 by Bell Telephone
Laboratories, Incorporated and describes Copy-on-Write quite well.
[ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: maroberts on Wednesday, August 10 2011 @ 03:58 AM EDT |
Whilst it's difficult to please all of the people all of the time, I think the
solution is to show Googles response as a separate article or to have it as a
linked item, so that people who want to see it can do so, whereas people who
don't want to see it will also be happy.[ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: amster69 on Wednesday, August 10 2011 @ 04:38 AM EDT |
There is a worrying trend since Mark took over as editor to use local
expressions that mean absolutely nothing to though of us living outside of
America. Yesterday we had the 'Missouri' comment and today it is
'shuck-and-jive'. Please Mark, stick to the common English language that the
majority of the international Groklaw readers can understand.
Bob.[ Reply to This | # ]
|
- Mark, please leave out the local expressions. - Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, August 10 2011 @ 06:55 AM EDT
- Mark, please leave out the local expressions. - Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, August 10 2011 @ 07:35 AM EDT
- Mark, please leave out the local expressions. - Authored by: jonathon on Wednesday, August 10 2011 @ 11:40 AM EDT
- No problems here - its all in common use. And "the context" gives you the meaning shirley - Authored by: SilverWave on Wednesday, August 10 2011 @ 11:51 AM EDT
- Mark, please leave out the local expressions. - Authored by: julian on Wednesday, August 10 2011 @ 01:11 PM EDT
- Without Idioms there is no language - Authored by: llanitedave on Wednesday, August 10 2011 @ 01:37 PM EDT
| |
| Authored by: Ian Al on Wednesday, August 10 2011 @ 04:45 AM EDT |
The Patent Office granted U.S. Pat. No. 7,426,720 (the "'720
patent") solely based on claim amendments adding a "copy-on-write" limitation...
Amendment after Final Rejection (Dec. 18, 2007) (adding copy-on-write
limitations); Notice of Allowability (May 20, 2008) (citing the copy-on-write
limitations added by amendment as the rationale for
patentability),
To be clear, in the Request for
Reexamination, Requester pointed out the Patent Owner failed to cite Bach: more
particularly Patent Owner described other sections of Bach in the background
section. Responding to this point, Patent Owner stated the following in its July
5, 2011 respoinse:"Bach was not cited, but it was described in the background of
the '720 Patent and portions were incorporated by reference. Indeed, the
discussion [of Bach] relating to copy-on-write process cloning was not
incorporated, but rather expressly placed in the body of the specification for
the reader to read."
So, the prior art for the copy-on-write
limitation that was the only rationale for patentability, all else having been
finally rejected, was expressly placed in the body of the specification for the
reader to read, but the citations of prior art failed to cite Bach as prior art
for copy-on-write even though it was expressly placed in the body of the
specification and it included copy-on-write.---
Regards
Ian Al
Patented inventions must be obvious. You could never work them out from the
patent disclosures. [ Reply to This | # ]
|
- Oh my! - Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, August 10 2011 @ 05:13 PM EDT
- Oh my! - Authored by: Ian Al on Thursday, August 11 2011 @ 02:23 AM EDT
- Oh my! - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, August 11 2011 @ 06:24 AM EDT
- Oh my! - Authored by: Steve Martin on Thursday, August 11 2011 @ 08:24 AM EDT
- Oh my! - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, August 11 2011 @ 10:59 AM EDT
- Oh my! - Authored by: Wol on Thursday, August 11 2011 @ 03:05 PM EDT
- Oh my! - Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, August 12 2011 @ 05:52 AM EDT
| |
| Authored by: cricketjeff on Wednesday, August 10 2011 @ 06:55 AM EDT |
Personally I frequently do not read the text copy of court documents here, but
that doesn't mean they are not valuable. PDFs are hard to skim read and won't be
accessed by any other than the most interested, putting the text directly on
Groklaw makes it easy to use and easy to see.
By all means make it obvious that the next bit is full text and may not need to
be read in detail, but please do include it. I find the patent stuff much more
interesting and relevant than the legalese in other areas, but perhaps that's
because I'm not a lawyer but I do have a number of patents ...
---
There is nothing in life that doesn't look better after a good cup of tea.[ Reply to This | # ]
|
- Beter yet... - Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, August 10 2011 @ 07:17 AM EDT
| |
| Authored by: rsteinmetz70112 on Wednesday, August 10 2011 @ 09:29 AM EDT |
I would suggest that it would be useful to many if the documents were reproduced
as text to allow searching if someone desires. The Patents themselves are often
discussed in comments so at least some people here are reading them and
commenting. Reading these documents helps me understand Patentese.
These text documents could be referenced in articles as links similar to the way
the PDFs have been referenced and placed in a location outside the normal
Groklaw search, thereby requiring someone wising to include them in a search to
do so explicitly or search a special location.
---
Rsteinmetz - IANAL therefore my opinions are illegal.
"I could be wrong now, but I don't think so."
Randy Newman - The Title Theme from Monk
[ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, August 10 2011 @ 10:57 AM EDT |
Mark,
If a reader doesn't want to be 'exposed' to info and ideas published in Groklaw
under the direction of PJ, normally published in Groklaw by PJ, perhaps they
shouldn't choose to read Groklaw.
I realize you are the publisher now, or what ever the proper term is, but
changing the character of the site, a lot probably is not a good idea. One might
even consider such behaviour as 'censorship'.
Let a reader censor himself, not the rest of us.
[ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, August 10 2011 @ 07:47 PM EDT |
Just trying to find a way to formulate a part of the problem more compact.
In the imagery world of patents, I would see using a patented technology without
taking a licence something equivalent to tax evasion. Registering a patent for a
technology that is not really yours looks me more equivalent to theft. Using
that stolen technology to extract money from others, I have no equivalent.
Naturally this is not the real world. The patent owner knows hardly what has
been registered. If not so many claims would not be found invalid later. A
developer can not know if he is infringing, the patent text being so vague, open
for interpretation. He can not know the claim will be found valid by
reexamination. The game is played more with procedures and lot of luck or bad
luck.
Or trying to say it in one sentence, you can not state that the developer is
doing something wrong and at the same time find it normal that in a conflict a
bunch of patents are thrown to the other a party, even many of the claims will
prove to be false. If the developer should know, why must the patent owner not
know?[ Reply to This | # ]
|
|
|
|
|
