Google Contractor Sues Google Over Google Sky Layer

Feb 18, 2008 at 8:15am ET by Barry Schwartz

Lawsuit claims Google stole idea for Sky layer in Earth from News.com reports a Google contractor named Jonathan Cobb is suing Google for allegedly stealing a Sky layer idea from him. Sky layers are data in both graphical and textual form that are used in Google Earth.

Jonathan Cobb filed suit in an Atlanta federal district court, suing Google for $25 million in punitive damages.

Cobb claimed that he came up with the concept and posted it in an internal email group at Google in 2006. In 2007, when Google Sky layers was launched, Cobbs claimed it contained similar a interface and had much of the functionality he dreamed up.

Eric Goldman told News.com, “It’s not entirely clear that Cobb wins even if everything he says is true.” These lawsuits are hard to prove and disprove.

More coverage can be found at Techmeme.

Barry Schwartz is Search Engine Land's News Editor and owns RustyBrick, a NY based web consulting firm. He also runs Search Engine Roundtable, a popular search blog on very advanced SEM topics. Barry's personal blog is named Cartoon Barry and he can be followed on Twitter here.

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