Northeastern University Sues Google Over Index Database Design

Nov 12, 2007 at 9:14am ET by Barry Schwartz

Northeastern sues Google over patent from The Boston Globe reports that Northeastern University and a company founded by a Northeastern professor, Kenneth P. Baclawski, is suing Google for patent infringement.

The issue at hand in this case is that Northeastern has patented a method of storing database queries back in 1997. It wasn’t until about two years ago that Northeastern learned that Google was potentially infringing on that patent. It wasn’t for another couple years that Northeastern was able to find lawyers that would take the case on a contingency basis.

The complaint was filed on November 6th at Eastern District of Texas–the U.S. court. You can find the PDF of the complaint over here, as well as the copy of the patent and the court docket, thanks to ResourceShelf.

In addition, you can read about how Microsoft does index partitioning in their search index via SEO By The Sea.

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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