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Google accused of racketeering in lawsuit

417 points by Jerry2 9y ago

alehul 9y 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.
- ocdtrekkie 9y 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.
- rdtsc 9y 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 9y 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?
    - rdtsc 9y ago
      In general in employment contracts in technology it seems. Any software written or ideas related to the field of employment get transferred to the employer. In some cases (have read it on HN here) people have successfully modified their employment contract to exclude some of the clauses like that. > 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? No idea, maybe someone could share. I would imagine it is a customized contract tailed for each contributor / collaborator. The important bit is it is a contract, so unless it is illegal any "kill" clauses could have been put in there.
      - Normal_gaussian 9y ago
        I recently turned down a job offer citing an overly broad IP clause. I had a call within minutes offering me a choice of how else it could be worded. I still turned it down and decided to go freelance instead because the contracts I had read had raised all kinds of personal questions.
        amcooper 9y ago
        I received a one-month contract—teaching, not developing—from a subsidiary of a large education company. I had to consult a lawyer and fight with them for a week over the contract's overly broad IP claims. They basically wanted ownership of teaching ideas I—or my partner (!)—came up with in perpetuity! I eventually got them to change it to my satisfaction, and had a great teaching experience with a cool group of students, but it really soured my relationship with the company and now i can't imagine working with them again.
- phkahler 9y 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.
  - greglindahl 9y ago
    How many of your NDAs have you gotten huge silicon valley companies to sign? If you're a little guy, that never happens.
    - deleted 9y ago
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    - corford 9y ago
      I know we're all speculating here but what is there to lose? Option 1: Sign my NDA or fuck off. Option 2: Show them everything and then they tell you to fuck off and steal your idea. At least with Option 1 you have some protection. Different equation if you need money/investment. But if you're already up, running and growing it's easier to play hard ball and demand an NDA.
      - greglindahl 9y ago
        I'm not speculating about my experiences working for a couple of startups in Silicon Valley... I signed a bunch of NDAs. I have no idea what happened to the author of this article.
- IBM 9y 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/595ea97dd9fccd31008b4667-769/screen%20shot%202017-07-06%20at%2021908%20pm.png http://static4.businessinsider.com/image/595ea97dd9fccd31008...
  - stingrae 9y ago
    Was that really surprising? The company that builds the first self driving cars will have an easy entrance into the ride service industry.
    - IBM 9y ago
      I'm not sure how that's relevant to the discussion.
- deleted 9y ago
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- kyledrake 9y 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.
- Sylos 9y 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.
  - deleted 9y ago
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- paul7986 9y ago
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  - Bucephalus355 9y ago
    It’s a weird company. Consider this, their CEO Eric Schmidt, technically Alphabet’s), has a voracious prostitute-appetite. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2371719/Googles-Eric-Schmidts-open-marriage-string-exotic-lovers.html http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2371719/Googles-Eric...
    - rightos 9y ago
      Is that confirmed anywhere more reputable? Daily Mail doesn't exactly have a stellar track record if I recall correctly.
- dragonwriter 9y 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 9y 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.
  - drfuchs 9y 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 http://fortune.com/worlds-most-admired-companies/list
    - philipov 9y ago
      Admired by whom? Fortune magazine editors? Those aren't one of the relevant categories.
      - drfuchs 9y ago
        Well, it wasn't the opinion of the editors, but of business leaders; as for the general public, Google still ranks very high: https://www.thebalance.com/retail-brands-with-the-best-reputation-2892335 https://www.thebalance.com/retail-brands-with-the-best-reput... and https://www.forbes.com/sites/karstenstrauss/2017/02/28/the-worlds-most-reputable-companies-in-2017/#76f5a6a32fe3 https://www.forbes.com/sites/karstenstrauss/2017/02/28/the-w...
        philipov 9y ago
        2015 - #10 2014 - #14 2013 - #4 2012 - #2 2011 - #1 This looks like a collapsing reputation to me. Perhaps it hasn't fully collapsed yet, but you can see how big a hit it took recently.
- lobotryas 9y 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).
- Animats 9y 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.
sealthedeal 9y ago
So now we know the real secrets behind Google X! ;)
QAPereo 9y 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.
- ocdtrekkie 9y 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.
  - erdojo 9y 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.
  - alehul 9y 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?
  - Sylos 9y 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 9y 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 9y 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 9y 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 9y 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 9y ago
  Depends on how good your lawyer is. There's no cookie-cutter NDA from Party A to Party B with fixed roles.
- 0xbear 9y 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.
- wpietri 9y 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 9y 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.
- noncoml 9y ago
  You state it as it is fact. That’s what the plaintiff claims, yes. But it doesn’t mean it’s true.
  - ComputerGuru 9y 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.
    - aneutron 9y ago
      They have to deal with thousands of patent trolls. I'm assuming that they have to do this, otherwise they'd set a precedent, not strictly in the court room, that they have been subdued. IANAL, but I think that any firm of this size would be aggressive when you start throwing such statements.
- pishpash 9y 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?
  - StanislavPetrov 9y ago
    Simple, because then they'd have to share the profits with them.
    - 9y ago
noncoml 9y 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?
- kuschku 9y 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 9y ago
    Could that mean that the condition was immediate payment? (Salary,bonus, stock, ...)
    - kuschku 9y ago
      Or it could have been that he only gets paid if that very specific project would make profit, etc. There’s many way to write such a contract.
  - bagacrap 9y 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 9y 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?article=2524&context=historical http://digitalcommons.law.scu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?articl...
- erdojo 9y 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.
- paul7986 9y 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 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15422475
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paul7986 9y ago
I had a similar experience with Google; a mutual NDA was signed as seen here https://goo.gl/K9Wd1U 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!!!
- delhanty 9y 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 http://www.paulgraham.com/corpdev.html
  - ak39 9y 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.
    - delhanty 9y ago
      >But it isn’t easy to ... Surely that's a significant understatement. Once mega copy dev has planted that idea in one's mind it must be hard to kill off. So maybe one needs to have thought about the possibility of an unwelcome approach and have a plan to kill it. Maybe: 1. Ask mega corp to authenticate themselves - maybe by posting a pre-agree shared secret on their corporate blog. 2. Post the approach from mega copy dev on one's own blog telling them to go away. Eg. "I received the following unwelcome approach from a large Mountain View search company - details redacted (snark) ..." Comments?
jamilbk 9y ago
The problem with “Don’t be evil” is that evil is subjective.
- Sylos 9y ago
  Also, that it's not legally binding.
- chaostheory 9y 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 9y ago
  The problem with "Don't be evil" is that it was nothing but an underhanded PR stunt to begin with.
  - walshemj 9y ago
    yes they didn't state if was LE NE or CE they where talking about :-)
ijafri 9y 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 https://verbose.co/33
- rodgerd 9y ago
  Ah yes, Steve Jobs would be quite the guy to lecture anyone about betrayls of trust and friendship.
  - deleted 9y ago
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  - wpietri 9y 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-bonus-267711 http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/steve-wozniak-cried-jobs-kept-atari...
    - carapace 9y ago
      Remember when they (Adobe, Apple Inc., Google, Intel, Intuit, Pixar, Lucasfilm and eBay [1]) colluded to keep each other from competing for talent and driving up wages? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-Tech_Employee_Antitrust_Litigation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-Tech_Employee_Antitrust_L...
      - ShabbosGoy 9y ago
        Kabuki Theatre for the proles.
    - triplesec 9y ago
      Likely because sarcasm isn't generally approved ofin HN. Your link is much more useful
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johansch 9y ago
It has been going on for a while: https://www.theverge.com/2015/2/17/8048779/google-x-eli-attia-lawsuit-flux-architecture 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 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.
- jaclaz 9y 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.
  - johansch 9y ago
idibidiart 9y ago
Larry and Sergey must have watched too much Shark Tank... what buffonary if the evidence stands scrutiny
rurban 9y 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-attia-lawsuit-flux-architecture 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 http://www.esri.com/software/cityengine/free-trial
- eternalban 9y ago
  They were not "recursive", as I recall. Care to share a few patterns?
  - rurban 9y ago
    Here is a newer book about such patterns: http://buildz.blogspot.de/2010/12/parametric-design-patterns.html?m=1 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.
Top19 9y 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...
- paul7986 9y ago
  Google did something similar to me as I have detailed in this thread below.... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15422475 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!
  - Top19 9y 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 9y ago
  > Their behavior has changed a ton from then ... Based on?
zby 9y 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 9y 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 9y 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.
- deleted 9y ago
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- theDoug 9y 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 9y ago
    Are you going to put the disclaimer though in your post at the bottom?
    - ocdtrekkie 9y ago
      It's somewhat obvious by the content of his post. (I do actually really appreciate when people do disclose their conflicts here. Thanks to those of you who do.) theDoug is also not wrong, to be fair. There's no situation in which a Google employee who is not a lawyer publicly commenting on a lawsuit against Google works out well for the employee. Anything he says could get his employer in additional trouble, and as an employee, commenting on a legal case is really, really easy grounds for termination, pretty much anywhere. Whether he agrees with the article or not, nothing he says ends up beneficial to him, so it just makes sense to not comment.
      - Gigablah 9y ago
        I'm just astounded that this needs explaining in the first place. Common sense is not that common.
- 9y ago
ComodoHacker 9y 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 9y 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.
StanislavPetrov 9y ago
From Edison to Jobs its the American way..
- bitL 9y ago
  Funny how we were told Larry Page was weeping when he learned the fate of Nikola Tesla...
  - eternalban 9y ago
    Maybe he was weeping over the lost opportunity.
Teever 9y 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.
- bsjob 9y ago
  You do realize that there exists software that is not made by Google, right?
- klodolph 9y ago
  If you sue the phone company, they don't cut off your service or tap your phones.
  - flyGuyOnTheSly 9y ago
    Source on the tapping your phones part?
  - Teever 9y ago
    You would be surprised. http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/telus-cuts-subscriber-access-to-pro-union-website-1.531166 http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/telus-cuts-subscriber-access-t...
- blammo999 9y ago
  You do realize that there exists software that isn't made by Google, right? Oh, also books exist.
  - blammo999 9y 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).
    - Teever 9y ago
zaptheimpaler 9y ago
Straight out of Silicon Valley (the TV show)..
rasz 9y ago
Lets not forget Google trying to steal ANS as their own invention, filling for patents covering >100 countries.
jarym 9y 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 9y ago
Clickbait
londons_explore 9y 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.
- tyingq 9y 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-attia-lawsuit-flux-architecture https://www.theverge.com/2015/2/17/8048779/google-x-eli-atti...
  - YCode 9y 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 9y ago
  > "clean room" The room can be clean, but what about everything else? There's more to software than the actual written code.
  - UnpossibleJim 9y ago
applecorruption 9y 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
wslh 9y ago
Much more information in this article from 2014 http://www.globes.co.il/en/article-architect-eli-attia-sues-google-for-stealing-invention-1000993300 http://www.globes.co.il/en/article-architect-eli-attia-sues-...
sitkack 9y ago
Sounds un-googley.
nova22033 9y 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?
- tyingq 9y 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 9y ago
At Comcast, we often joke Google is more evil than us. So I'm not surprised by this.
bitL 9y 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.
- alexasmyths 9y 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 9y 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/ http://maxd.audio/ [2] http://app.quotemedia.com/quotetools/newsStoryPopup.go?storyId=8080766090411988&topic=MAXD&symbology=null&cp=null&webmasterId=101345 http://app.quotemedia.com/quotetools/newsStoryPopup.go?story... [3] http://www.reuters.com/article/us-max-sound-google-lawsuit/max-sound-files-patent-suit-against-google-youtube-in-germany-idUSKBN0JQ0IA20141212 http://www.reuters.com/article/us-max-sound-google-lawsuit/m...

417 points by Jerry2 9y 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.

ocdtrekkie 9y 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.
rdtsc 9y 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 9y 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?
  - rdtsc 9y ago
    In general in employment contracts in technology it seems. Any software written or ideas related to the field of employment get transferred to the employer. In some cases (have read it on HN here) people have successfully modified their employment contract to exclude some of the clauses like that. > 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? No idea, maybe someone could share. I would imagine it is a customized contract tailed for each contributor / collaborator. The important bit is it is a contract, so unless it is illegal any "kill" clauses could have been put in there.
    - Normal_gaussian 9y ago
      I recently turned down a job offer citing an overly broad IP clause. I had a call within minutes offering me a choice of how else it could be worded. I still turned it down and decided to go freelance instead because the contracts I had read had raised all kinds of personal questions.
      - amcooper 9y ago
        I received a one-month contract—teaching, not developing—from a subsidiary of a large education company. I had to consult a lawyer and fight with them for a week over the contract's overly broad IP claims. They basically wanted ownership of teaching ideas I—or my partner (!)—came up with in perpetuity! I eventually got them to change it to my satisfaction, and had a great teaching experience with a cool group of students, but it really soured my relationship with the company and now i can't imagine working with them again.
phkahler 9y 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.
- greglindahl 9y ago
  How many of your NDAs have you gotten huge silicon valley companies to sign? If you're a little guy, that never happens.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - corford 9y ago
    I know we're all speculating here but what is there to lose? Option 1: Sign my NDA or fuck off. Option 2: Show them everything and then they tell you to fuck off and steal your idea. At least with Option 1 you have some protection. Different equation if you need money/investment. But if you're already up, running and growing it's easier to play hard ball and demand an NDA.
    - greglindahl 9y ago
      I'm not speculating about my experiences working for a couple of startups in Silicon Valley... I signed a bunch of NDAs. I have no idea what happened to the author of this article.
IBM 9y 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/595ea97dd9fccd31008b4667-769/screen%20shot%202017-07-06%20at%2021908%20pm.png http://static4.businessinsider.com/image/595ea97dd9fccd31008...
- stingrae 9y ago
  Was that really surprising? The company that builds the first self driving cars will have an easy entrance into the ride service industry.
  - IBM 9y ago
    I'm not sure how that's relevant to the discussion.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
kyledrake 9y 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.
Sylos 9y 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.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
paul7986 9y ago
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- Bucephalus355 9y ago
  It’s a weird company. Consider this, their CEO Eric Schmidt, technically Alphabet’s), has a voracious prostitute-appetite. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2371719/Googles-Eric-Schmidts-open-marriage-string-exotic-lovers.html http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2371719/Googles-Eric...
  - rightos 9y ago
    Is that confirmed anywhere more reputable? Daily Mail doesn't exactly have a stellar track record if I recall correctly.
dragonwriter 9y 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 9y 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.
- drfuchs 9y 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 http://fortune.com/worlds-most-admired-companies/list
  - philipov 9y ago
    Admired by whom? Fortune magazine editors? Those aren't one of the relevant categories.
    - drfuchs 9y ago
      Well, it wasn't the opinion of the editors, but of business leaders; as for the general public, Google still ranks very high: https://www.thebalance.com/retail-brands-with-the-best-reputation-2892335 https://www.thebalance.com/retail-brands-with-the-best-reput... and https://www.forbes.com/sites/karstenstrauss/2017/02/28/the-worlds-most-reputable-companies-in-2017/#76f5a6a32fe3 https://www.forbes.com/sites/karstenstrauss/2017/02/28/the-w...
      - philipov 9y ago
        2015 - #10 2014 - #14 2013 - #4 2012 - #2 2011 - #1 This looks like a collapsing reputation to me. Perhaps it hasn't fully collapsed yet, but you can see how big a hit it took recently.
lobotryas 9y 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).
Animats 9y 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.

sealthedeal 9y ago

So now we know the real secrets behind Google X! ;)

QAPereo 9y 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.

ocdtrekkie 9y 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.
- erdojo 9y 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.
- alehul 9y 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?
- Sylos 9y 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 9y 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 9y 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 9y 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 9y 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 9y ago
Depends on how good your lawyer is. There's no cookie-cutter NDA from Party A to Party B with fixed roles.
0xbear 9y 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.
wpietri 9y 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 9y 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.

noncoml 9y ago
You state it as it is fact. That’s what the plaintiff claims, yes. But it doesn’t mean it’s true.
- ComputerGuru 9y 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.
  - aneutron 9y ago
    They have to deal with thousands of patent trolls. I'm assuming that they have to do this, otherwise they'd set a precedent, not strictly in the court room, that they have been subdued. IANAL, but I think that any firm of this size would be aggressive when you start throwing such statements.
pishpash 9y 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?
- StanislavPetrov 9y ago
  Simple, because then they'd have to share the profits with them.
  - 9y ago

noncoml 9y 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?

kuschku 9y 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 9y ago
  Could that mean that the condition was immediate payment? (Salary,bonus, stock, ...)
  - kuschku 9y ago
    Or it could have been that he only gets paid if that very specific project would make profit, etc. There’s many way to write such a contract.
- bagacrap 9y 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 9y 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?article=2524&context=historical http://digitalcommons.law.scu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?articl...

erdojo 9y 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.
paul7986 9y 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 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15422475

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

paul7986 9y ago

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

delhanty 9y 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 http://www.paulgraham.com/corpdev.html
- ak39 9y 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.
  - delhanty 9y ago
    >But it isn’t easy to ... Surely that's a significant understatement. Once mega copy dev has planted that idea in one's mind it must be hard to kill off. So maybe one needs to have thought about the possibility of an unwelcome approach and have a plan to kill it. Maybe: 1. Ask mega corp to authenticate themselves - maybe by posting a pre-agree shared secret on their corporate blog. 2. Post the approach from mega copy dev on one's own blog telling them to go away. Eg. "I received the following unwelcome approach from a large Mountain View search company - details redacted (snark) ..." Comments?

jamilbk 9y ago

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

Sylos 9y ago
Also, that it's not legally binding.
chaostheory 9y 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 9y ago
The problem with "Don't be evil" is that it was nothing but an underhanded PR stunt to begin with.
- walshemj 9y ago
  yes they didn't state if was LE NE or CE they where talking about :-)

ijafri 9y 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 https://verbose.co/33

rodgerd 9y ago
Ah yes, Steve Jobs would be quite the guy to lecture anyone about betrayls of trust and friendship.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- wpietri 9y 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-bonus-267711 http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/steve-wozniak-cried-jobs-kept-atari...
  - carapace 9y ago
    Remember when they (Adobe, Apple Inc., Google, Intel, Intuit, Pixar, Lucasfilm and eBay [1]) colluded to keep each other from competing for talent and driving up wages? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-Tech_Employee_Antitrust_Litigation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-Tech_Employee_Antitrust_L...
    - ShabbosGoy 9y ago
      Kabuki Theatre for the proles.
  - triplesec 9y ago
    Likely because sarcasm isn't generally approved ofin HN. Your link is much more useful

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

johansch 9y ago

It has been going on for a while: https://www.theverge.com/2015/2/17/8048779/google-x-eli-attia-lawsuit-flux-architecture 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 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.

jaclaz 9y 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.
- johansch 9y ago

idibidiart 9y ago

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

rurban 9y 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-attia-lawsuit-flux-architecture 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 http://www.esri.com/software/cityengine/free-trial

eternalban 9y ago
They were not "recursive", as I recall. Care to share a few patterns?
- rurban 9y ago
  Here is a newer book about such patterns: http://buildz.blogspot.de/2010/12/parametric-design-patterns.html?m=1 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.

Top19 9y 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...

paul7986 9y ago
Google did something similar to me as I have detailed in this thread below.... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15422475 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!
- Top19 9y 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 9y ago
> Their behavior has changed a ton from then ... Based on?

zby 9y 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 9y 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 9y 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.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
theDoug 9y 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 9y ago
  Are you going to put the disclaimer though in your post at the bottom?
  - ocdtrekkie 9y ago
    It's somewhat obvious by the content of his post. (I do actually really appreciate when people do disclose their conflicts here. Thanks to those of you who do.) theDoug is also not wrong, to be fair. There's no situation in which a Google employee who is not a lawyer publicly commenting on a lawsuit against Google works out well for the employee. Anything he says could get his employer in additional trouble, and as an employee, commenting on a legal case is really, really easy grounds for termination, pretty much anywhere. Whether he agrees with the article or not, nothing he says ends up beneficial to him, so it just makes sense to not comment.
    - Gigablah 9y ago
      I'm just astounded that this needs explaining in the first place. Common sense is not that common.
9y ago

ComodoHacker 9y 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 9y 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.

StanislavPetrov 9y ago

From Edison to Jobs its the American way..

bitL 9y ago
Funny how we were told Larry Page was weeping when he learned the fate of Nikola Tesla...
- eternalban 9y ago
  Maybe he was weeping over the lost opportunity.

Teever 9y 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.

bsjob 9y ago
You do realize that there exists software that is not made by Google, right?
klodolph 9y ago
If you sue the phone company, they don't cut off your service or tap your phones.
- flyGuyOnTheSly 9y ago
  Source on the tapping your phones part?
- Teever 9y ago
  You would be surprised. http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/telus-cuts-subscriber-access-to-pro-union-website-1.531166 http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/telus-cuts-subscriber-access-t...
blammo999 9y ago
You do realize that there exists software that isn't made by Google, right? Oh, also books exist.
- blammo999 9y 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).
  - Teever 9y ago

zaptheimpaler 9y ago

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

rasz 9y ago

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

jarym 9y 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 9y ago

Clickbait

londons_explore 9y 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.

tyingq 9y 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-attia-lawsuit-flux-architecture https://www.theverge.com/2015/2/17/8048779/google-x-eli-atti...
- YCode 9y 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 9y ago
> "clean room" The room can be clean, but what about everything else? There's more to software than the actual written code.
- UnpossibleJim 9y ago

applecorruption 9y 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

wslh 9y ago

Much more information in this article from 2014 http://www.globes.co.il/en/article-architect-eli-attia-sues-google-for-stealing-invention-1000993300 http://www.globes.co.il/en/article-architect-eli-attia-sues-...

sitkack 9y ago

Sounds un-googley.

nova22033 9y 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?

tyingq 9y 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 9y ago

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

bitL 9y 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.

alexasmyths 9y 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 9y 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/ http://maxd.audio/ [2] http://app.quotemedia.com/quotetools/newsStoryPopup.go?storyId=8080766090411988&topic=MAXD&symbology=null&cp=null&webmasterId=101345 http://app.quotemedia.com/quotetools/newsStoryPopup.go?story... [3] http://www.reuters.com/article/us-max-sound-google-lawsuit/max-sound-files-patent-suit-against-google-youtube-in-germany-idUSKBN0JQ0IA20141212 http://www.reuters.com/article/us-max-sound-google-lawsuit/m...