Google accused of racketeering in lawsuit

http://www.mercurynews.com/2017/10/06/google-accused-of-racketeering-in-lawsuit-claiming-pattern-of-trade-secrets-theftt/

by Jerry2 • 9 years ago

417 186 9 years ago

mercurynews.com

alehul2• 9 years ago

Google did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but a judge in the case noted last year that the firm has argued that Attia gave Google rights to his technology “without a condition of later payment.”

So Google's defense isn't even that the substance of the accusations are false, but that they had the legal ability to do so?

Is this common behavior for Google, if the story is true?

This may be naive, but it seems downright illogical to act like that with a reputation as huge and important as Google's. I'd be concerned if I were a collaborator.

ocdtrekkie4• 9 years ago

Is this kind of behavior common for Google?

That is, in fact, exactly what the case is trying to demonstrate by referring to several other lawsuits against Google for similar acts. Remains to be seen if it works.

rdtsc3• 9 years ago

Is this common behavior for Google, if the story is true?

It depends on details of his contract. It's quite plausible his employment contract in "Project X" did say that he would transfer knowledge and ideas in exchange for money. It's pretty standard stuff.

In other words, it might not be exactly a slam dunk case. A racketeering charge seems pretty outrageous as well.

However if Google did these things (which looks like they did), it would make them look shady. Maybe legally in the clear but ethically like you said, it would seem they threw their reputation under the bus.

Maybe once companies are a certain size they think they are untouchable and say stuff like "Yeah this is shady, but we've got lawyers and PR people to handle this, no biggie"

And this is why maybe a charge like racketeering is nice move - it might not be winnable in court, but it is outrageous enough to damage Google's reputation. Had it been some mundane case over a minor legal term, we wouldn't have found out.

bogomipz• 9 years ago

"It's quite plausible his employment contract in "Project X" did say that he would transfer knowledge and ideas in exchange for money."

I'm curious about your comment that this is "pretty standard stuff." Do you mean in the context of Google X agreements? Do you transfer intellectual property to them as part of the employment contract?

Are you paid a flat fee? Do they pay a "kill" fee if Google X ultimately decides not pursue your idea and terminates your employment agreement?

paul79865• 9 years ago

Based on my similar experience with Google ATAP I bet they do this a lot! I've detailed my experience below...

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15422475

phkahler• 9 years ago

> So Google's defense isn't even that the substance of the accusations are false, but that they had the legal ability to do so?

But they were under NDA not to disclose the ideas, and yet they started a company marketing a product based on those ideas. If this is a correct interpretation, they don't have the legal ability to do so.

Of course the wording of the NDA is everything in a case like this. I'm assuming Google wrote the NDA when this guy should have provided one for Google to sign.

greglindahl2• 9 years ago

How many of your NDAs have you gotten huge silicon valley companies to sign? If you're a little guy, that never happens.

IBM2• 9 years ago

Before Uber became Public Enemy #1 and prior to the Otto/Levandowski dispute, Google was planning on competing with Uber despite being an investor, which led Kalanick to e-mail David Drummond about it [1]. Drummond eventually left Uber's board (which harkens back to Schmidt leaving Apple's board) but this was well after the relationship had been deteriorating.

[1] http://static4.businessinsider.com/image/595ea97dd9fccd31008...

stingrae• 9 years ago

Was that really surprising? The company that builds the first self driving cars will have an easy entrance into the ride service industry.

kyledrake• 9 years ago

Is this common behavior for Google, if the story is true?

Google/GV was shit listed by a bunch of startup founders in Portland many years ago because they "stole a company" they were partnering with there. The founder was somebody everybody liked and PDX tech didn't take it well (and yes, we all talk to each other).

This does happen and you need to be very careful with these sorts of arrangements. They know they put stars in people's eyes and I've seen them take advantage of it.

Sylos3• 9 years ago

No worries, they'll release a Parsey McParseface and then the world knows again that they're just a geeky tech startup having some fun.

Google is an advertising company. They can easily sacrifice reputation where it brings them the most profit and fix it again with a bit of PR.

paul79865• 9 years ago

dragonwriter• 9 years ago

So Google's defense isn't even that the substance of the accusations are false, but that they had the legal ability to do so?

Without additional context of the judges statement (or, better, either the actual filings in the case), that's far from clear.

It's not impossible or even uncommon for a defendant in a case to make an argument in the style of “I didn't take it, and, even if I had, I had permission to take it.”

You can't infer the nonexistence of the first part of the claim from the existence of the second.

ZoFreX• 9 years ago

with a reputation as huge and important as Google's

Not trolling: What reputation?

Among non-techies, their reputation is one of creepy and spying.

Among techies, it's that company that keeps killing loved products.

Among developers, it's one of terrible support and awful job interviews.

Common to everyone is they are impossible to get hold of, a faceless and heartless machine that makes decisions you can't argue with.

None of this matters because they have the best products on the market in a few key areas and everyone keeps using those regardless of their reputation.

So what reputation do they have to lose? Their reputation is already bad, and it doesn't matter anyway, and they presumably know this as well as everyone else does.

drfuchs2• 9 years ago

You're living in a bubble if you think Google has a bad reputation; in fact, they're the sixth-most admired company in the world: http://fortune.com/worlds-most-admired-companies/list

dleslie• 9 years ago

And among current Google employees it's one of exhalted prestige and boundless trustworthiness.

lobotryas2• 9 years ago

The plaintiff's lawyers say that Google has won five out of six similar lawsuits on procedural grounds so looks like pretty common.

As for reputation, why would a behemoth like Google care if they squash a little guy (or two, or a dozen)? Even if they go on a PR offensive they still won't be able to outmatch or shout over Google. At most people like the HN audience will find out and then... proceed to do nothing because Google's products are either ubiquitous (like search) or first-in-class (because they are free, like email).

Animats3• 9 years ago

Google did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but a judge in the case noted last year that the firm has argued that Attia gave Google rights to his technology “without a condition of later payment.”

This is why, when you visit Google, you should never sign the overreaching NDA for a visitor's badge. You still get a visitor's badge; it just has a warning on it so Googlers know not to tell you too much.

QAPereo• 9 years ago

That’s pretty much unequivocally evil, right? Seriously though, if this guy has a real case, Google is going to have a truly miserable time in court.

ocdtrekkie4• 9 years ago

It depends. The article suggests the plaintiff may not have properly protected his intellectual property ahead of time. It may be very hard to get a court to side against Google if what Google did was technically legal.

Evil and illegal are two different things, and sadly, they quite often do not align.

erdojo2• 9 years ago

If the facts bear out, even if what Google allegedly did was legal, it's going to be a terrible thing for Google. No one with any interesting tech will ever want to share info ever again.

alehul2• 9 years ago

IANAL, but: Is that the reason behind the racketeering charge?

They've developed a method of systematic theft of IP, which, though technically legal as an isolated incident, shows malicious intent when strung together.

Is that enough to satisfy the charge, or are they still protected?

Sylos3• 9 years ago

This isn't about the single case of the guy getting legally taken away his rights.

The accusation is that Google has a routine set up for doing this, therefore is very much knowingly taking away people's rights against their will.

uptownfunk• 9 years ago

Will be very interesting to see what happens. I do think that companies as big as google certainly seem untouchable. They have a huge amount of resources that could probably flood you with paperwork and litigation. Kudos to this guy for sticking up for his beliefs, at any cost.

propman• 9 years ago

This is just plain scummy. Their defense is a that it's legal but this is just plain ridiculous. How do you fight a company that has a team of lawyers that can sink you for years and doing so prevents future attempts from happening.

I think the NDA meetings that result in what the lawsuits allege. Note, allege. Should have more stringent regulations to protect the smaller guy. Also google sinking its paws into everything and in many cases misbehaving makes me glad that we have sensible regulations against monopolies if it ever gets that far

sverige• 9 years ago

It got that far long a few years ago at least. If we had sensible enforcement of the regulations and laws against monopolies, Google would have been broken up already.

thinkloop• 9 years ago

This made me question my understanding of NDAs - are they supposed to restrict usage by the party you told the secret to, or only that they can't share with others?

ktta• 9 years ago

Depends on how good your lawyer is. There's no cookie-cutter NDA from Party A to Party B with fixed roles.

0xbear• 9 years ago

Cookie-cutter NDAs are nearly always very one-sided. Some of the NDAs our company signs with other companies take weeks of lawyers bickering about things that to the uninitiated seem like useless bullshit. But the fact that those things are there in the initial version, and that the lawyers of the other company start out by saying there's no way they will be removed, and then after weeks of bickering agree to the changes should tell you something.

wpietri2• 9 years ago

It depends on the NDA. But one of the important things you should always think about with a contract is your power to enforce it. Even a small lawsuit can be expensive and painful. Are you willing an able to go the distance against the defendant? If not, the language of the contract doesn't matter.

gamesbrainiac• 9 years ago

In simple terms, google baited people with good ideas to join google x labs. Then pursued to cancel the projects, and thus cutting out the people who originated these ideas. Finally, google went on to use these ideas to create their own technology, and some have even graduated from Google X Labs.

Basically, evil incubation.

noncoml2• 9 years ago

You state it as it is fact. That’s what the plaintiff claims, yes. But it doesn’t mean it’s true.

ComputerGuru3• 9 years ago

If, as hinted in the article based off a judge in the case’s remarks, and Google’s defense is “we were under no obligation to compensate him” then it does seem that it is what went down.

pishpash2• 9 years ago

That's simplistic. Why would they go to the trouble of "cutting out the people who originated these ideas" if they are already at X Labs and the project was to continue?

StanislavPetrov2• 9 years ago

Simple, because then they'd have to share the profits with them.

noncoml2• 9 years ago

The article presents only one side of the story.

I have never heard of Google being accused of something similar in the past. Does anyone have any pointers to similar incidents?

kuschku2• 9 years ago

It also presents Google’s answer, which was

that Attia gave Google rights to his technology “without a condition of later payment.”

They admit they did it, but claim they were in the right to do it.

ithkuil• 9 years ago

Could that mean that the condition was immediate payment? (Salary,bonus, stock, ...)

bagacrap• 9 years ago

So it devotes one article to one side, and six words (a quote of a quote) to the other side. That doesn't seem very even handed. News outlets profit when people get outraged; why would you trust this one to be disinterested?

greydata• 9 years ago

So the contention is that Google stole his idea for building design software? His representation is a bunch of patent trolls and the suit has already been going on for 3 years. The only news is now they are contending that many major Google products are based on coordinated and systematic IP theft (Search, Ads, Maps, Wallet, Hangouts, Youtube, Android). Pretty sure this is entirely bullshit.

Actual lawsuit: http://digitalcommons.law.scu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?articl...

erdojo2• 9 years ago

Thanks for posting the link. I just read the first several pages, and I disagree with your conclusion.

This was more than a simple idea or patent. It was developed by someone with extensive experience in a vertical industry. Google actually paid to contract with him to develop a proof-of-concept, with the idea if the tech panned out and had market viability, they'd take it to market with him.

Google doesn't hire patent trolls or rely on their expertise in developing products.

The lawsuit is full of hyperbole (which hurts it in IMHO), but the underlying claim looks pretty believable.

paul79865• 9 years ago

I met with Google ATAP in 2013 and had a similar experience. I am and have been an aspiring inventor for the past 10 years.

You can read more about my experience with Google ATAP via this post...

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15422475

paul79865• 9 years ago

I had a similar experience with Google; a mutual NDA was signed as seen here https://goo.gl/K9Wd1U.

- Feb 2013 created SpeakerBlast; turn multiple devices into one sync speaker via a URL

- March 2013 Samsung released the Galaxy 4 with Group Play (same concept as SpeakerBlast)

- April 2013 Google/Motorola emails/calls me asking would I sell SpeakerBlast for inclusion into the Moto X

- May 2013 Fly out from Baltimore to demo/meet with Google ATAP in the hopes of fulfilling my goal/dream of being a successful inventor. During the meeting they bait my partner and I for our secret sauce then leave the room. They come back and say time to go and lead us to the elevator and say the race is on. See ya!

As the David in this David n Goliath story I have no idea if our work was used in Chrome Audio or not. The head of that unit is run by the Google ATAP tech lead we met with.

Ive heard this is just how it is in Silicon Valley.. treat the little guy and girls like crap. Take their hard work, steal it and stomp on them. Things need to change!!!

delhanty2• 9 years ago

Thanks for sharing this. Sorry to hear about how you were given the run around.

It reminded me of the advice from one of Paul Graham's essays: Don't Talk to Corp Dev [1]

Distractions are the thing you can least afford in a startup. And conversations with corp dev are the worst sort of distraction, because as well as consuming your attention they undermine your morale.

[1] http://www.paulgraham.com/corpdev.html

ak39• 9 years ago

This advice is gold. But it isn’t easy to overcome the temptation of imagining that any convo with any division of mega Corp is the lucky break you always hoped for.

saimiam3• 9 years ago

Things need to change!!!

How should things change? I genuinely feel for you so keep the rest of what I'm going to say at arms distance.

The way I see it, you are essentially asking people not to learn from each other. Software is not basic science where, if you discover a process or a particle, you are putting into words something outside the human brain.

Software (mathematical formulations aside) describes how the brain works. Anyone can hear a high level description of your SpeakerBlast an imagine a way to sync speakers. Their implementation might be radically different to yours but there is no way for you to stop me from imagining a solution based simply on your two sentence description of the product.

If you want to learn more about this process, there's a book by a neuroscientist, The Tell-Tale Brain by VS Ramachandran, which delves into the process of mirroring and meme spreading.

arkj• 9 years ago

The way I see it, you are essentially asking people not to learn from each other.

I dont think he sayimg anything like that. There's a big difference between learning from each other and baiting you for your secret sauce.

ocdtrekkie4• 9 years ago

I don't think the problem would be the learning in this scenario. The problem would be not compensating the educator.

throw2016• 9 years ago

Completely unrelated to the issue at hand. What is the connection you are implying?

There is a context to intellectual property. If you sign an NDA to get some information and then use it to launch a new product this argument will not hold to any judge in your defense?

There is also a huge difference between 2 individuals exchanging ideas and a large corporate specifically seeking you out for your idea to steal it. It's difficult to see how anyone can conflate the two.

ComputerGuru3• 9 years ago

There is no benefit in complaining here. If you actually care, this sounds like it’s your opportunity to get a lawyer for some minimal amount of money to reach out to Attia’s lawyers and see if they’re interested. It seems they are pooling past examples demonstrating similar behavior.

pcwalton• 9 years ago

Of course there's a reason to complain here. I can hardly think of a better place to get the word out to technology entrepreneurs if your goal is to do so.

(Not to imply anything about the truth or falsity of the allegations. I don't know whether any are true.)

Animats3• 9 years ago

This is the price of weakening patents. When corporations were afraid of patent holders, this happened less. The great fear was, you infringe a patent, you get shut down. That happened to Kodak when they tried to get into instant photography in violation of Polaroid's patents. Kodak was forced to exit the instant camera business within 30 days and buy back every instant camera they'd sold.

johansch5• 9 years ago

This seems to have started around 1976/1977. Polaroid wasn't exactly a tiny startup then, so they had the financial resources to defend themselves.

https://books.google.com/books?id=6TTbCT64seEC&pg=PA91&lpg=P...

"In 1977, (Polaroid) revenues reached $1 billion"

The lawsuit took 15 years to settle:

http://www.nytimes.com/1991/07/16/business/kodak-settles-wit...

CalChris2• 9 years ago

In what way do you think that patents have been weakened? AIA changed to first-to-file, 20 years and added PTAB but how have issued and in force patents been weakened?

IncRnd2• 9 years ago

Did you patent your IP first?

contingencies• 9 years ago

Thats funny, after working with most major device manfacturers on digital video for 2 years (2009-2010), I submitted a similar concept to YC in late 2010 but received no reply. My core point was mobile device manufacturers desperately need a USP and this would work nicely combined with some DSP based nearby device playlist remixing and possibly a heartbeat sense and some GPS smarts. You know for shared sports like cycling and jogging and rowing and stuff. Perfect sync not required, since everyone is on earbuds. Vary the music as you go over the hill, the sun sets, tempo manipulation, auto-transitioning between tracks, etc. Would work just as well for smarter playlists while driving. Tech's all there these days, still not aware of anyone who has done it. If you make millions on it wire me 100k. :)

rz2k• 9 years ago

Is there anything like AppleScript for iOS to control apps?

Traktor for iOS lets you select songs by beats per minute and adjust their speed to synchronize multiple tracks at once. If it adjusted target music tempo with heart rate, speed, rate of altitude change etc as inputs then your product would be realized.

If you've developed ideas on what are the best ways to choose tempos why not consider contacting Native Instruments?

jstewartmobile• 9 years ago

This has been the valley formula for at least 20 years now.

First company I worked for wrote Palm software. Palm starts a conversation with us--allegedly on how they could improve their OS for developers--and starts asking fairly specific questions about our product.

Three months later they come out with a copy of it.

Worse still, before that happened Intellisync sued us for patent infringement on our own algorithm. The boss didn't bother to patent it figuring that it had prior-art all over it. That didn't stop the USPTO from issuing Intellisync a patent though. Our attorney was sure we could win, IF we felt like investing a few years and a few $M into the legal battle.

pfarnsworth• 9 years ago

You should join the lawsuit or at least talk with their lawyers, I'm sure they would be very interested in talking with you.

alain94040• 9 years ago

A possible explanation: Google was interested in your technology. They setup a meeting. After you gave them more details, they decided that your technology wasn't anything special, and they passed. No particular malice here.

Your job during an M&A meeting is to convince the other side that you have unique technology and knowledge that will be very costly to replicate. You are trying to sell your technology.

bitmapbrother• 9 years ago

Why don't you reverse engineer the Chromecast technology and build a case for yourself that's backed by evidence instead of continually regurgitating the same story over and over again?

jamilbk• 9 years ago

The problem with “Don’t be evil” is that evil is subjective.

Sylos3• 9 years ago

Also, that it's not legally binding.

chaostheory2• 9 years ago

Not that they’ve religiously followed it outside of their early years but Google has dropped “don’t be evil” over a year ago.

659087• 9 years ago

The problem with "Don't be evil" is that it was nothing but an underhanded PR stunt to begin with.

walshemj• 9 years ago

yes they didn't state if was LE NE or CE they where talking about :-)

ijafri• 9 years ago

Google's leadership profoundly betrayed the longtime personal trust and friendship of Apple's leadership in stealing what Steve Jobs believed were Apple's most prized possessions.

You may think it’s a coincidence, but then you realize it isn’t.

https://verbose.co/33

rodgerd• 9 years ago

Ah yes, Steve Jobs would be quite the guy to lecture anyone about betrayls of trust and friendship.

wpietri2• 9 years ago

I'm not sure why this is getting downvoted. Early on he blatantly cheated Wozniak: http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/steve-wozniak-cried-jobs-kept-atari...

johansch5• 9 years ago

It has been going on for a while:

https://www.theverge.com/2015/2/17/8048779/google-x-eli-atti...

This 2008 patent application has a number of interesting illustrations:

https://www.google.com/patents/US20090234696

(note the actually granted Google patents that reference this one)

Seems like the original idea was LEGO-like modular system of components that can be combined into buildings.

jaclaz2• 9 years ago

Seems like the original idea was LEGO-like modular system of components that can be combined into buildings.

Which in itself it is not entirely new and largely pre-dates the advent of computers as we know them today.

In the '80's and '90's there were all sorts of experiments in the field, it was a "trend" explored in many countries, "modular building prefabrication".

I was involved in the time in several projects (and actual constructions) though surely things may have become easier today (thanks to CAD, CAE and new materials/techniques), at the time the results were not as good as hypothized in the patent, aspecially for "civil" buildings.

Specifically there was a definite saving of time in the building phase, BUT the resulting building was either at a "lower" standard/level than a more traditional construction or - to have the same standard/level - the costs were not so much lower.

The base concept has been used for decades in "industrial" buildings, such as factories and warehouses, however those used a much lesser number of different (and simpler) components, and more or less they are anyway always a parallelepiped of some kind.

Simply (and not so surprisingly) the techniques developed at the time for houses/office buildings made only sense in very large scale projects as the cost of (besides constructing them and assembling them) storing, managing and transporting/delivering the components killed the economic savings possible in theory.

If (when) a "build components on demand" scheme and a "continuous flow of production" was possible it did make sense, unfortunately this is not what normally happens in the real world, there were months/years when the production was lower than demand and then for whatever reasons there were months/years with no or very low demand, thus costs of plants ate the savings.

johansch5• 9 years ago

(Thanks for the perspective, that was interesting.)

Btw, modular/semi-modular home construction is a pretty big thing here in Sweden. Seems like most standalone homes are built that way nowadays. I had earlier assumed it was similar elsewhere, but it seems like it isn't dominant in most other places.

I guess our horrible climate makes it nicer/more profitable to build modules in a climate-controlled factory than on a wintery/coldish/raining building site. Contrast that to e.g. California - decent climate all year around. I'm also guessing that our high taxes on work and a lack of a low-paid builder workforce also contributes to making automation of housing module manufacturing worthwhile.

See e.g.

https://www.treehugger.com/modular-design/sweden-they-are-bu...

(It's not just one house manufacturing company doing these, there are loads of them around the country; I think the typical size is a couple of hundred people. With lots and lots of automation. Not quite sure why large-scale consolidation hasn't happened yet - I'm guessing it's because these companies tend to be privately/family-owned.)

http://www.globalconstructionreview.com/trends/why-sweden-be...

"About 84% of detached houses in Sweden use prefabricated timber elements, while in developed economies such as the US, Australia and the UK, no more than 5% of permanent housing has any significant prefabrication."

idibidiart• 9 years ago

Larry and Sergey must have watched too much Shark Tank... what buffonary if the evidence stands scrutiny

rurban2• 9 years ago

I call this bullshit.

"Project Genie to educate Google about his proprietary ideas and techniques so they could develop a working proof of concept of his Engineered Architecture technology"

Parametric design and integration into AEC is industry standard since the 80-ies, and a long-time goal of virtually all design software manufacturers. Everybody had a take on this moonshot, and eventually it will get there.

It started with Christopher Alexanders "Design Patterns", when he won a city planning competition for the rebuilding of a destroyed Lima, Peru by offering simple recursive design patterns and not a grand master plan. In the following decades this was being incooperated into various design tools. In the 90ies I based a university course on that ("Computer Assistet Planning"), and there were several others also worldwide. City planning is obviously easiest, as there are almost no physics involved, AEC also easy but problematic because the heterogeneous SW used (needing API's, needing a strong partner), and construction being the hardest (Think of AutoCAD vs Revit). Allia thought of the Neufert standards as design patterns. Good goal, but by far not proprietary and revolutionary. Most of us working on that had far more than Allia.

Going to Google with this plan is also extremely naive. There's only AutoDESK to go to with such a project.

An earlier overview is that article https://www.theverge.com/2015/2/17/8048779/google-x-eli-atti... A current take on city planning is the City Engine: http://www.esri.com/software/cityengine/free-trial

eternalban3• 9 years ago

They were not "recursive", as I recall. Care to share a few patterns?

rurban2• 9 years ago

Here is a newer book about such patterns: http://buildz.blogspot.de/2010/12/parametric-design-patterns...

Recursive pattern expansion is the most powerful. Think of Lindenmayer L-Systems to generate plants or fractal image compression. Graphical pattern matching would be a breakthrough way to simplify usage if such a tool. This was studied in the late 80ies.

Top192• 9 years ago

Wow this story is shocking. I want to point out it’s quite believable if you look at this situation historically. Microsoft was known for doing this exact same thing. Their tactic was to wine and dine startups, give them the “big megacorp company treatment”, ask them to divulge just a little of how they were doing what they were doing. Then they would go back to Seattle, put out an identical product 6 weeks later, and dare the company to sue them. Also another tactic of theirs was to get their executives or those on their payroll onto the boards of startups, sometimes as advisors, and then feed info back to MSFT. Their behavior has changed a ton from then I want to point out, but now looks like Google has picked up where they left off...

paul79865• 9 years ago

Google did something similar to me as I have detailed in this thread below....

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15422475

It's very relevant to this story and I think it's important for it to be told to warn other inventors how Google treats the little guy/girl!

Top192• 9 years ago

Hey have read your story Paul and sorry about that. FWIW even Oracle tried to sue them, and Oracle has never been known for not going 100% ruthless or going cheap on their lawyers / law talent, and even they failed. The only one who can stop them now is the government. Democrats are already lining up against them, and in the congressional district I live in, even the very conservative Lamar Smith recently sent them an angry letter regarding various accusations. They are being hemmed in by both sides, and if politics gets better the cooperation of both parties will lead to their massacre, and if it gets worse, they’ll be the scapegoat likely and equally massacred. I hope that provides some solace. The breakup of Google and Facebook will also unleash a flood of talented engineers for places they are more needed than shitty advertising companies, maybe you can partner with one of them when the dam breaks.

justinclift• 9 years ago

Their behavior has changed a ton from then ...

Based on?

XenophileJKO• 9 years ago

If they released in 6 weeks then they had already created the product before they talked to the startup.

zby• 9 years ago

OK - so what is the take away for startups? It is common that investors don't want to sign NDAs. And it is mostly OK, because in most cases the investor does only investing and he cannot use the ideas on his own, so his best bet is to make a deal with the startup, but if your potential investor is a big corpo - then you need a lot more careful.

trhway• 9 years ago

if that is an internal culture at Google, that may somewhat explain how Levandowski and his people may not personally felt any duty to follow basic morals toward Google. I mean i'm not trying to justify their actions, and personally i find Levandowski's actions smelling pretty bad, i'm just saying that at the system level it seems to be karma at work.

influx• 9 years ago

Where are all the people who are always disclaiming to work for Google in every thread about Google? Weird you’re silent on this.

theDoug• 9 years ago

Since you asked, it's 11:36pm and I just got home from drinking wine with a friend. I'm making a pastrami sandwich and might fall asleep soon. Can't speak for others, though. Thanks for your curiosity.

Thankfully, your honor, most of us are smart enough to know to not play unpaid internet forum lawyer.

Bucephalus355• 9 years ago

Are you going to put the disclaimer though in your post at the bottom?

spiderPig• 9 years ago

Yes please, can we please get @boulos to tell us how GCP can be seemingly used to solve this architects problem here? AWS has clearly failed!

rifung• 9 years ago

I work at Google.. I am just a lowly engineer and know nothing about this so I have nothing to say.

I miss the days when I could comment and people would think I was just a person with an opinion.

delroth• 9 years ago

Sorry, I'm only getting paid to shill during office hours.

rasz3• 9 years ago

You didnt get stock options?

cdibona• 9 years ago

Not really, this looks like a nuisance suit that hired a publicist. Googlers don't want to comment on lawsuits, it's time consuming and turns into deposition, which are time consuming. Also, most googlers are not anywhere near X, Flux or for that matter outside google proper. So what would they say?

You have to understand: Google gets sued a lot . It is a function of having money. I wish everyone on HN as much success as google, and if you do even a fraction as well I can guarantee you'll be hiring lawyers at a steady clip as your bank balance attracts lawsuits.

Doesn't mean people shouldn't be careful when partnering with Google or anyone, but there's no end of people who think when they have some idea in their head no one else on earth has it and can execute on it.

Nearly 8b people on this planet means that someone, somewhere, is probably working on 'your' idea. Some of them at Google. Some at Apple, some at some yc startup across the room from you. Only answer is to ship better and before they do.

ComodoHacker• 9 years ago

Can someone ELI5 whats the core tech behind Project Genie or Flux? What I've found are some vague descriptions like "Flux provides seamless data exchange between industry design tools such as Rhino and Revit".

fujiters• 9 years ago

"It’s even worse than just using the proprietary information — they actually then claim ownership through patent applications,” Buether said.

Why didn't Attia patent everything already? He'd been working on it for 50 years.

I suspect Google is really just getting into the building design software space but not using Attia's work and Attia thought he was now a part of any effort by Google in building design software.

StanislavPetrov2• 9 years ago

From Edison to Jobs its the American way..

bitL2• 9 years ago

Funny how we were told Larry Page was weeping when he learned the fate of Nikola Tesla...

eternalban3• 9 years ago

Maybe he was weeping over the lost opportunity.

Teever3• 9 years ago

Man it would be so terrifying going up against Google in court.

How do you do research? How do you communicate with your lawyer?

They know everything about what you do, when you do it, and who you do it with.

klodolph• 9 years ago

If you sue the phone company, they don't cut off your service or tap your phones.

flyGuyOnTheSly• 9 years ago

Source on the tapping your phones part?

Teever3• 9 years ago

You would be surprised.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/telus-cuts-subscriber-access-t...

blammo9992• 9 years ago

You do realize that there exists software that isn't made by Google, right? Oh, also books exist.

blammo9992• 9 years ago

Like, lawyers have their own collections of research they search through, and because they're not all SV tech bros, they're not above making a phone call or meeting in person in one of their offices (and no, not the open kind).

seqastian• 9 years ago

Anonymously.

goldenkey• 9 years ago

There exist other quality search engines like DuckDuckGo. As for anonymity of location: Google would most likely have someone dig through search queries done in the city of the plaintiff/lawyer. VPNs and proxies can help as well as services like Amazon Workspaces. Combining both will mask any trace of your identity pretty well from all but the big 3 government agencies.

-------

DuckDuckGo Search Engine

https://duckduckgo.com

Amazon Workspaces

https://aws.amazon.com/workspaces/

VPN Discussion on HN

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14974383

drtillberg• 9 years ago

Google is embedded in most web services, including this site (as capcha via cloudflare). But, you eventually would learn that non-google services that are mostly as good (except maps), and you would use no-script.

aneutron2• 9 years ago

Not really no. Security wise, they remain one of the most badass actors on the field. I am very sure that my data and passwords are safeguarded. Same can't be said about Yahoo, Bing, or other companies/products.

zaptheimpaler• 9 years ago

Straight out of Silicon Valley (the TV show)..

rasz3• 9 years ago

Lets not forget Google trying to steal ANS as their own invention, filling for patents covering >100 countries.

jarym• 9 years ago

The best way this can affect Google is if the people they want to 'partner' with in the future turn around and tell them: "sorry you guys have a reputation now for being untrustworthy partners. We'd love to work with you but you will have to pay up big and first before we even share even the smallest details"

tinmandespot• 9 years ago

Clickbait

londons_explore• 9 years ago

As a former insider, I can tell you likely pre-story which might cast a different light on this:

* Google employee comes up with an idea.

* They go and research the idea to check if there are any already existing companies which do it.

* If any are found, they meet and decide if they should buy the company, reinvent the idea, or that it isn't relevant.

* If, after investigation it is determined the company's tech isn't good enough, they will re-invent. Google has fairly strict tech requirements (no php, no shady licenses/ownership, no pirated stuff, etc.), so many companies don't pass.

* When they reinvent, they will do it "clean room" - ie. none of the people who reviewed the original company will be involved in the re-invention.

tyingq5• 9 years ago

This story showed more than meeting or talking though. Agreements of some sort were signed, and he was asked to move out to Google and work with them.

Sounds like Google's position is that they did do what was alleged, but that Attia had signed terms that made it legal.

What you described above is similar. Legal, but shitty. Some amount of information obtained under false pretenses is surely passed to the "clean room" team. Otherwise, why meet with the target at all?

Edit: This Verge story has pretty good detail on the backstory: https://www.theverge.com/2015/2/17/8048779/google-x-eli-atti...

YCode• 9 years ago

Offhand it definitely sounds like the clean room concept basically distills what they want to steal/"reinvent" into a requirement document.

I guess it gives the employees plausible deniability, but the company knows what it's doing.

d0100• 9 years ago

"clean room"

The room can be clean, but what about everything else? There's more to software than the actual written code.

UnpossibleJim• 9 years ago

(I'm not being a smart ass, this is an actual question, which is a sad caveat to have to make) does the stuff that isn't code really matter in a court of law? If they went through the steps to "clean" the original viewers, who then wrote up the spec sheet, had that spec sheet reviewed by seperate people, then handed that spec sheet to "clean" engineers, does that work under the law?.... still complete BS, sure, but I'm curious

rebelde• 9 years ago

This is off-topic, but "no php"?

wizu• 9 years ago

Because PHP is objectively a worse tool for its designed purpose than other alternatives.

c0nfused• 9 years ago

PHP has historically sucked.

http://www.cvedetails.com/product/128/PHP-PHP.html?vendor_id...

I have gotten out of the consulting world a bit, but for a while a php codebase meant I would double my estimated time on any quote I sent out. There is terrible php out there and most of it is vulnerable to every one of the OWASP top 10.

banku_brougham• 9 years ago

There is a large body of php hating literature. Here's an example: https://eev.ee/blog/2012/04/09/php-a-fractal-of-bad-design/

tyingq5• 9 years ago

Guess they would have passed on Facebook then.

shaftway• 9 years ago

Disclosure: Current googler

It used to be a deal-killer. It's less of one now, but that's more because they'll acquire a company and have the staff re-invent the project in one of the "blessed" languages (Java, Python, C++, Go) while they run the old code on isolated VMs.

Actually, they do that even if the project was in one of the blessed languages. There's a tech stack my internal project uses that was acquired. We can't use it for certain sensitive data because it's considered "untrusted", which is kind of a pain. We're waiting for the re-write to stabilize so we can move over to that.

eecks• 9 years ago

Can you tell us more about the strict tech requirements?

rasz3• 9 years ago

Like project Loon?, or ANS? Copying something verbatim and claiming it yours sure doesnt sound clean room to me.

lobotryas2• 9 years ago

Your post doesn't shed a new light on anything. At best, that's the equivalent of a big firm going through deep "technical due diligence" with a startup's technology under the guide of a merger. Then, they tell the startup they are not interested and implement the same tech in-house using a "clean room".

alphonsegaston2• 9 years ago

It sheds light on the captive mindset of someone inside Google. All it takes to get someone to go along with theft and underhandedness is to dress up the whole thing in bureaucratic process.

wslh2• 9 years ago

Are you an insider of this specific case or just another person who knows how Google works internally?

alexasmyths3• 9 years ago

'Clean room' development doesn't necessarily absolve them of IP issues, and of 'nasty tactics' that may not be illegal but which would be hypocritical of a company trying to promote a specific image.

_-david-_• 9 years ago

no php

Are there other languages Google doesn't like?

applecorruption• 9 years ago

Google is dirty player. I have very little trust on google! They company politics are violating people's rights. They are manipulating and deleting peoples accounts if they political agenda is not google's agenda. Sad sad google. You are just like any other corporation like facebook and twitter.

Freedom of speech?? - you must be joking

wslh2• 9 years ago

Much more information in this article from 2014 http://www.globes.co.il/en/article-architect-eli-attia-sues-...

sitkack• 9 years ago

Sounds un-googley.

nova22033• 9 years ago

Someone filed a lawsuit against a company with deep pockets?

Is it just me or has there been an increase of anti-google piling on after the James Damore thing?

tyingq5• 9 years ago

The lawsuit has existed for a couple of years. The news is that accusations of racketeering were recently added. That's highly unusual, and so, newsworthy.

LeeHwang• 9 years ago

At Comcast, we often joke Google is more evil than us. So I'm not surprised by this.

bitL2• 9 years ago

Hmm, all these news just tell me the winning strategy is no longer being generous like it was in 00s, where free/open source/access exploded, rather selfishly secretively keep all information to your advantage to yourself. Not sure I'd like to live in such a society. Can't wait to have enforced-by-automation toxic daily life.

alexasmyths3• 9 years ago

This is the way it has always been.

The Valley is a paradox of open/fsf types and mega corps which can simultaneously be very good and very evil.

Google's ownership of the web could enable them to do a zillion evil things if they wanted to, which they don't.

Google could easily control the outcomes of elections.

They could easily sell companies the ability to change how their company is perceived, rankings etc.

Granted some of that may actually be illegal, but I think if G were a regular corp they'd have tried to do some really bad things.

That said, I do think they do some bad things.

So it's a paradoxy kind of thing.

vikingmetal• 9 years ago

Just for context, Eli Attia, the architect, is not really the one pursuing the claim against Google here.

A company called Max Sound [1], whose only line of business seems to be suing Google, bought rights to sue over this in May 2014 and then sued Google in Dec 2014 [2]. They seem to have filed at least one other somewhat questionable lawsuit against Google in the past [3].

[1] http://maxd.audio/

[2] http://app.quotemedia.com/quotetools/newsStoryPopup.go?story...

[3] http://www.reuters.com/article/us-max-sound-google-lawsuit/m...

Google accused of racketeering in lawsuit

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