Even as the online search giant Google has been pondering to take on Microsoft, it received a blow when the authorities of Northeastern University lodged a patent violation court case against the company. In its complaint, the university has accused Google of pilfering its database architecture to provide search results to its users. Refuting Google’s patent claims on the technology, the university has asserted that the know-how was in fact developed in 1997 as well as patented by a firm named Jarg in Waltham, Mass., established jointly by Prof Kenneth Baclawski of the Northeastern University.

In addition, the court case that was lodged with the Marshall District of Texas that specializes in patent matters claimed that the patent for the database architecture ‘illegally used’ by Google was actually possessed by the university and accredited to Prof Baclawski. The university has sought a jury hearing as well as an injunction preventing Google from continuing the infringement on its patent on the technology. Although the court is yet to set a date for the trial, the university has also claimed royalty payments and compensation from the online search engine major.

The technology that the university mentioned in its suit is a distributed database system that splits search engine questions into parts and then allocates them to numerous computers linked in a network to obtain closer and faster answers. The patent of the technology describes it as ‘a combination of computer nodes interconnected by the network operates as a search engine’. The technology was patented by the university on December 2, 1997 and listed under the number 5,694,593 by the US Patent and Trademark Office.

In fact, Google too employs a distributed database system that splits questions into several fragments to enable quicker dispensation. According to the suit filed by Jarg, Google earns as much as 99 percent of its proceeds from search engine promotions and the accomplishment of the company’s business is partially dependent on the pace at which its search results are delivered.

The complainant Jarg has said that he first came to know about the alleged patent contravention of its technology from a lawyer in Boston who thought Google’s search technology bore resemblance to that covered by the patent obtained by the Northeastern University and Jarg. Incidentally, though the Boston lawyer pointed out the reported anomaly, his company refused to take up Jarg’s case on the pretext that it needed to be paid in advance for the work. This made Jarg wait for over two years to find a lawyer who would be willing to take up the matter on an emergency basis.

Meanwhile, Google has confirmed that the Northeastern University had filed a complaint charging the company with infringing its patented technology. However, at the same time, the search engine major has refuted the allegations made in the complaint and dismissed them as ‘fictitious’ and ‘without any merit’.

No trial date has been set. Now all eyes are on the next move by Google, which will have to respond to the lawsuit, and also whether the district court decides to entertain the case or simply brush it off as ‘unwarranted’.

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