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Percona hold software patents covering essentially all of Bender et al.’s cache-oblivious data structures via the Tokutek acquisition, don’t they? Nothing agai

Percona hold software patents covering essentially all of Bender et al.’s cache-oblivious data structures via the Tokutek acquisition, don’t they? Nothing against this text in particular, but interacting with anything originating from there leaves a ... slimy feeling.

hodgesrm 4y ago
Many companies own patents for many different reasons. Has Percona ever actually asserted patent rights? I can't think of an instance where this is the case. They have also made major independent contributions like Percona XtraBackup, to name just one that many MySQL users know. Also, if we all avoided companies and products that have patents, wouldn't that rule out owning a mobile phone? Disclaimer: We're Percona partners and Peter Zaitsev is on our board. I endorse the view in his article without reservation as you can probably tell. ;)
PeterZaitsev 4y ago
No. (Percona CEO and article author here) - Percona does not own Fractal Trees patents. Patents belong to MIT and Tokutek licensed those patents from MIT, Percona took over this license.
- mananaysiempre 4y ago
  Thank you! I even remembered reading something to that effect in the original Tokutek PATENTS files, but went on Google Patents to double-check and (it seems) hit the wrong patent. For reference, those are: - “Disk-resident streaming dictionary” (2007) [1] seems to be the main one for both the COLA (if it is patentable at all—the base datastructure, fractional cascading, and deamortization were all in the literature a decade or more before, though impressively obscure from where I’m standing) and the CO B-tree; owned by MIT and (according to Google) exclusively licensed to Tokutek and afterwards Percona; - Same (2012) [2], a “continuation”(?), allowed to lapse and expired; - “High-performance streaming dictionary” (2010) [3], the one I found during the double-check, but hell if I know what it actually discloses—using a search tree to implement a database? a specific database implementation? WTF? definitely not anything cache-oblivious specifically; (according to Google) owned by Tokutek and then Percona. [1] https://patents.google.com/patent/US8185551B2 https://patents.google.com/patent/US8185551B2 ; https://fees.uspto.gov/MaintenanceFees/fees/details?patentNumber=8,185,551&applicationNumber=11%2F760,379 https://fees.uspto.gov/MaintenanceFees/fees/details?patentNu... [2] https://patents.google.com/patent/US8489638B2 https://patents.google.com/patent/US8489638B2 ; https://fees.uspto.gov/MaintenanceFees/fees/details?patentNumber=8,489,638&applicationNumber=13%2F476,826 https://fees.uspto.gov/MaintenanceFees/fees/details?patentNu... [3] https://patents.google.com/patent/US8996563B2 https://patents.google.com/patent/US8996563B2 ; https://fees.uspto.gov/MaintenanceFees/fees/details?patentNumber=8,996,563&applicationNumber=12%2F755,391 https://fees.uspto.gov/MaintenanceFees/fees/details?patentNu...
  - PeterZaitsev 4y ago
    Thanks for correcting there are other patents indeed. I frankly forgot about those as in the end Tokutek technology unfortunately did not get much traction and we in the end depreciated it and focused on RocksDB/MyRocks instead which targets similar end user advantages

hodgesrm 4y ago

Many companies own patents for many different reasons. Has Percona ever actually asserted patent rights? I can't think of an instance where this is the case. They have also made major independent contributions like Percona XtraBackup, to name just one that many MySQL users know. Also, if we all avoided companies and products that have patents, wouldn't that rule out owning a mobile phone? Disclaimer: We're Percona partners and Peter Zaitsev is on our board. I endorse the view in his article without reservation as you can probably tell. ;)

PeterZaitsev 4y ago

No. (Percona CEO and article author here) - Percona does not own Fractal Trees patents. Patents belong to MIT and Tokutek licensed those patents from MIT, Percona took over this license.

mananaysiempre 4y ago
Thank you! I even remembered reading something to that effect in the original Tokutek PATENTS files, but went on Google Patents to double-check and (it seems) hit the wrong patent. For reference, those are: - “Disk-resident streaming dictionary” (2007) [1] seems to be the main one for both the COLA (if it is patentable at all—the base datastructure, fractional cascading, and deamortization were all in the literature a decade or more before, though impressively obscure from where I’m standing) and the CO B-tree; owned by MIT and (according to Google) exclusively licensed to Tokutek and afterwards Percona; - Same (2012) [2], a “continuation”(?), allowed to lapse and expired; - “High-performance streaming dictionary” (2010) [3], the one I found during the double-check, but hell if I know what it actually discloses—using a search tree to implement a database? a specific database implementation? WTF? definitely not anything cache-oblivious specifically; (according to Google) owned by Tokutek and then Percona. [1] https://patents.google.com/patent/US8185551B2 https://patents.google.com/patent/US8185551B2 ; https://fees.uspto.gov/MaintenanceFees/fees/details?patentNumber=8,185,551&applicationNumber=11%2F760,379 https://fees.uspto.gov/MaintenanceFees/fees/details?patentNu... [2] https://patents.google.com/patent/US8489638B2 https://patents.google.com/patent/US8489638B2 ; https://fees.uspto.gov/MaintenanceFees/fees/details?patentNumber=8,489,638&applicationNumber=13%2F476,826 https://fees.uspto.gov/MaintenanceFees/fees/details?patentNu... [3] https://patents.google.com/patent/US8996563B2 https://patents.google.com/patent/US8996563B2 ; https://fees.uspto.gov/MaintenanceFees/fees/details?patentNumber=8,996,563&applicationNumber=12%2F755,391 https://fees.uspto.gov/MaintenanceFees/fees/details?patentNu...
- PeterZaitsev 4y ago
  Thanks for correcting there are other patents indeed. I frankly forgot about those as in the end Tokutek technology unfortunately did not get much traction and we in the end depreciated it and focused on RocksDB/MyRocks instead which targets similar end user advantages