Google Sued Over Google Sky Feature

http://www.enews20.com/news_Google_Sued_Over_Google_Sky_Feature_05900.html

by auferstehung • 18 years ago

9 11 18 years ago

dkokelley3• 18 years ago

Critical sentence:

"Jonathan Cobb claims that during his work for Google as contractor he posted a complete description of Google Sky in an internal Google discussion group."

Who knows what kind of contract work he was doing, but I'll bet there's a clause in his contract from Google that states "All your base are belong to us." Besides, it was posted in an internal discussion group. The ideas there already belong to Google by default.

boredguy82• 18 years ago

"Besides, it was posted in an internal discussion group. The ideas there already belong to Google by default."

Fortunately there's no foundation for that claim for many reasons, the simplest of which is that ideas belong to no one.

dkokelley3• 18 years ago

I don't know where this "Ideas belong to no one" concept comes from, but I don't quite understand the logic behind it. Please explain. (This is confusing to me because by this logic the person can't sue Google because Google didn't take "his" ideas, since the idea doesn't belong to anyone.)

If it is an internal company blog, it is assumed to be used exclusively by Google insiders to collaborate and share ideas. If this person posted his ideas there, either as part of his contract work or not, it is assumed that Google has the authority to act on information presented there, unless poster didn't have the authority to post the information there.

zach• 18 years ago

I say award him liquidated damages of $20 according to Sivers' Rule:

http://www.oreillynet.com/onlamp/blog/2005/08/ideas_are_just...

redorb• 18 years ago

$25 million? When was the last time anyone got $25 million just for their idea? Not even a prototype, but an idea in a blog post? ...

since when was a blog post a patent?

limeade• 18 years ago

I emailed Google the same idea a few years ago and never heard back. It's pretty obvious.

amohr• 18 years ago

Doesn't say when he posted, but his idea sounds a lot like celestia http://www.shatters.net/celestia/

Google Sued Over Google Sky Feature

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