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Links to two of the patents that were infringed https://patents.google.com/patent/US7103640B1/en https://patents.google.com/patent/US7103640B1/en https://pate

Links to two of the patents that were infringed https://patents.google.com/patent/US7103640B1/en https://patents.google.com/patent/US7103640B1/en https://patents.google.com/patent/US7233978B2/en https://patents.google.com/patent/US7233978B2/en I really hope Kove loses, I don't know too much about networking, but a few header fields don't really seem patentworthy to me.

tsimionescu 3y ago
This doesn't seem like a few protocol fields, but about the entire mechanism of distributing the information and how to get from a request to any one server in the distributed network to the one that actually stores the information you requested (at least looking at the claims in your first patent). I have no idea if there was prior art or how close the procedure they describe was to known storage algorithms in 2000 when the application was made, so I'm not saying this is a valid patent, but it doesn't seem like a completely frivolous patent to me at first glance. Of course, if indeed AWS came to a very similar implementation themselves, as the jury found, then that further suggests that the idea is not that novel.
- chessgecko 3y ago
  My read of patent one is that they basically created DNS for storage. But DNS was invented in 1983 so I'm not really sure what was novel here other than pointing it at data, which uses a few extra headers, ala my comment. Even if there was nothing closer to this than DNS I don't think this patent should be valid.
  - tsimionescu 3y ago
    I think that in general, "use solution A to problem X to solve problem Y instead" is, in principle, a valid patent - assuming that it's not obvious that solution A would help with problem Y. After all, patents are about "how do I solve problem Y", not about the general algorithms themselves. However, the "it's not obvious" part is very important. Not working in the field, it's not at all clear to me if using DNS for data was an obvious idea in ~2000 for building a distributed DB or not.
    - manicennui 2y ago
      You are literally describing software engineering.
    - wang_li 2y ago
      TXT records were specified an rfc published in 1987. SRV records in feb 2000. This sounds to me like the web. You make a connection, you request a resource, it returns content and references to further resources that are required to get the full content of the resource you originally requested.
- mbreese 3y ago
  Not reading the patents, having a metadata server separate from the stored object data has been around for a long time. For example: IIRC, Lustre does this and was around well before the cloud (to the point where any patents that may have applied would have expired). Many HPC storage systems work with split metadata and object storage nodes, I’m just not sure how long others have been around. But, I’m sure AWS tried to get the patents invalidated first… right? If this covered separate store networks, then maybe that’s somewhat unique, but that’s not a far leap for me.
  - tsimionescu 3y ago
    According to Wikipedia, Lustre was released in 2003, while these patents were filed in 2000 and 2001 (they were only granted much later, in 2007, but the filing date is the most relevant), so that's not a good example. The patents are expired today, but they weren't in 2018 when this suit was filed. Still, even if the patents were in some way novel at their time, I think the details are far more important, especially: how close is AWS' implementation to the exact algorithm they describe? How many others came to the exact same implementation not knowing about this patent, potentially proving that it didn't actually meet the bar for novelty at the time it was granted?
    - throwaway11460 3y ago
      How are you supposed to not infringe on patents that were not granted yet?
      - tsimionescu 3y ago
        It's supposed to be very unlikely, unless you're actively looking for trouble. In principle, patents are supposed to only be given out for inventions that pass a bar of novelty. If that were true (it often isn't), it should ensure that it's very very unlikely for others to arrive at the same patentable invention independently. If they do, tough luck to the second person. Still, patents become public from the moment they are filed. So you can scour the patent applications database as well if you fear others have already filed for a patent for something you are trying to do. Of course, that will mean that, if you go ahead with your own implementation and the patent is later granted, you will not be able to claim that you didn't know about this, and will face higher damages if you end up in a lawsuit. The principle here is that a company decides to publish some internal discovery instead of keeping it for themselves, and the government in return grants them a limited time monopoly on that invention. The company could instead keep the invention a secret, but in that case, they can't stop others from using it, and if someone else patents it, their secret invention can actually infringe on the patent granted to someone else later.
- nulbyte 3y ago
  I stopped after claim 9 on the first patent linked. It had, up until that point, described: peer-to-peer routing, downloading data and programs, running downloaded programs using downloaded data, redirection, and variable length strings. The next of claims seemed to begin to regurgitate the previous ones with some indiscerbable minute difference. None of this sounds novel. I read another of their patents where they invented a directory backed DNS service and web browser connections. This company sounds like one massive troll.
  - tsimionescu 3y ago
    Another poster I think put it better: what the patent is describing is essentially building a DNS system for data. Claim 1 describes how DNS forwarders work (the "client" is a DNS client, the "server" is a DNS forwarder, and the "data location server" is a DNS authoritative name server). Claim 10 then describes how a DNS recursive resolver works (the "client" is the rescursive resolver, and the "data location servers" are authoritative name servers). Claims 17 and 18 then essentially describe the full distributed DB that uses this DNS-like mechanism for retrieval. The sub-claims are just covering minor variations of the implementation, and can safely be ignored in general in any patent.
    - maratc 2y ago
      IANAL but there was a patent describing a USB-powered vibrator. While the idea of a vibrator is not new, and the idea of powering devices via USB isn't new either, the combination of these two non-new ideas was new. The patent was granted, and when someone (not the patent holder) produced a USB-powered vibrator, they were found in a violation of the patent in question. Similarly, if someone made a patent about "building a DNS system for data", and someone else used that idea to actually build that system, they may be in a violation of the patent. The more claims (or sub-claims) there are, the more specific the innovation was, and now the question is whether the supposed infringement was actually implementing all of the claims of the patent.
      - McBun 2y ago
        That sounds ridiculous to me... By the same logic, I could patent a car that is charged by USB (not very efficient, but eh, it's new !) and then nobody could build a car charged via USB ?
- datascienced 2y ago
  Something shouldn’t be a patent if a candidate could have come up with it in a system design interview
- freejazz 2y ago
  >Of course, if indeed AWS came to a very similar implementation themselves, as the jury found, then that further suggests that the idea is not that novel. That wouldn't matter if AWS came to the very similar implementation on their own, after the Plaintiff's patent was issued (and became public information). Patent, unlike copyright, does not allow for independent invention/creation. If you come to, on your own, something already covered in a patent during its term, then you infringe.
  - tsimionescu 2y ago
    Yes, it doesn't matter for determining if you are infringing on the patent. But it does matter for (a) the kinds of damages that you can be liable for, and (b) it can matter if you try to attack the patent itself to try to get it invalidated. Patents are only supposed to be granted for non-obvious ideas, so one way of attacking a patent is to show that many people came up with that idea independently, which is a strong argument that the idea doesn't pass the non-obviousness test and can get the patent invalidated.
    - freejazz 2y ago
      Yes, they can be evidence that invalidates a patent if they qualify as prior art.
zamalek 2y ago
Aren't those patents expired? It's been >20yr since application.
- skywhopper 2y ago
  S3 debuted in 2006.
- tsimionescu 2y ago
  They are, but the lawsuit was filed in 2018 when they were still in force. And the infringement is even older, so they can still claim damages for the whole period between AWS launch and 2020/2021.

tsimionescu 3y ago

This doesn't seem like a few protocol fields, but about the entire mechanism of distributing the information and how to get from a request to any one server in the distributed network to the one that actually stores the information you requested (at least looking at the claims in your first patent). I have no idea if there was prior art or how close the procedure they describe was to known storage algorithms in 2000 when the application was made, so I'm not saying this is a valid patent, but it doesn't seem like a completely frivolous patent to me at first glance. Of course, if indeed AWS came to a very similar implementation themselves, as the jury found, then that further suggests that the idea is not that novel.

chessgecko 3y ago
My read of patent one is that they basically created DNS for storage. But DNS was invented in 1983 so I'm not really sure what was novel here other than pointing it at data, which uses a few extra headers, ala my comment. Even if there was nothing closer to this than DNS I don't think this patent should be valid.
- tsimionescu 3y ago
  I think that in general, "use solution A to problem X to solve problem Y instead" is, in principle, a valid patent - assuming that it's not obvious that solution A would help with problem Y. After all, patents are about "how do I solve problem Y", not about the general algorithms themselves. However, the "it's not obvious" part is very important. Not working in the field, it's not at all clear to me if using DNS for data was an obvious idea in ~2000 for building a distributed DB or not.
  - manicennui 2y ago
    You are literally describing software engineering.
  - wang_li 2y ago
    TXT records were specified an rfc published in 1987. SRV records in feb 2000. This sounds to me like the web. You make a connection, you request a resource, it returns content and references to further resources that are required to get the full content of the resource you originally requested.
mbreese 3y ago
Not reading the patents, having a metadata server separate from the stored object data has been around for a long time. For example: IIRC, Lustre does this and was around well before the cloud (to the point where any patents that may have applied would have expired). Many HPC storage systems work with split metadata and object storage nodes, I’m just not sure how long others have been around. But, I’m sure AWS tried to get the patents invalidated first… right? If this covered separate store networks, then maybe that’s somewhat unique, but that’s not a far leap for me.
- tsimionescu 3y ago
  According to Wikipedia, Lustre was released in 2003, while these patents were filed in 2000 and 2001 (they were only granted much later, in 2007, but the filing date is the most relevant), so that's not a good example. The patents are expired today, but they weren't in 2018 when this suit was filed. Still, even if the patents were in some way novel at their time, I think the details are far more important, especially: how close is AWS' implementation to the exact algorithm they describe? How many others came to the exact same implementation not knowing about this patent, potentially proving that it didn't actually meet the bar for novelty at the time it was granted?
  - throwaway11460 3y ago
    How are you supposed to not infringe on patents that were not granted yet?
    - tsimionescu 3y ago
      It's supposed to be very unlikely, unless you're actively looking for trouble. In principle, patents are supposed to only be given out for inventions that pass a bar of novelty. If that were true (it often isn't), it should ensure that it's very very unlikely for others to arrive at the same patentable invention independently. If they do, tough luck to the second person. Still, patents become public from the moment they are filed. So you can scour the patent applications database as well if you fear others have already filed for a patent for something you are trying to do. Of course, that will mean that, if you go ahead with your own implementation and the patent is later granted, you will not be able to claim that you didn't know about this, and will face higher damages if you end up in a lawsuit. The principle here is that a company decides to publish some internal discovery instead of keeping it for themselves, and the government in return grants them a limited time monopoly on that invention. The company could instead keep the invention a secret, but in that case, they can't stop others from using it, and if someone else patents it, their secret invention can actually infringe on the patent granted to someone else later.
nulbyte 3y ago
I stopped after claim 9 on the first patent linked. It had, up until that point, described: peer-to-peer routing, downloading data and programs, running downloaded programs using downloaded data, redirection, and variable length strings. The next of claims seemed to begin to regurgitate the previous ones with some indiscerbable minute difference. None of this sounds novel. I read another of their patents where they invented a directory backed DNS service and web browser connections. This company sounds like one massive troll.
- tsimionescu 3y ago
  Another poster I think put it better: what the patent is describing is essentially building a DNS system for data. Claim 1 describes how DNS forwarders work (the "client" is a DNS client, the "server" is a DNS forwarder, and the "data location server" is a DNS authoritative name server). Claim 10 then describes how a DNS recursive resolver works (the "client" is the rescursive resolver, and the "data location servers" are authoritative name servers). Claims 17 and 18 then essentially describe the full distributed DB that uses this DNS-like mechanism for retrieval. The sub-claims are just covering minor variations of the implementation, and can safely be ignored in general in any patent.
  - maratc 2y ago
    IANAL but there was a patent describing a USB-powered vibrator. While the idea of a vibrator is not new, and the idea of powering devices via USB isn't new either, the combination of these two non-new ideas was new. The patent was granted, and when someone (not the patent holder) produced a USB-powered vibrator, they were found in a violation of the patent in question. Similarly, if someone made a patent about "building a DNS system for data", and someone else used that idea to actually build that system, they may be in a violation of the patent. The more claims (or sub-claims) there are, the more specific the innovation was, and now the question is whether the supposed infringement was actually implementing all of the claims of the patent.
    - McBun 2y ago
      That sounds ridiculous to me... By the same logic, I could patent a car that is charged by USB (not very efficient, but eh, it's new !) and then nobody could build a car charged via USB ?
datascienced 2y ago
Something shouldn’t be a patent if a candidate could have come up with it in a system design interview
freejazz 2y ago
>Of course, if indeed AWS came to a very similar implementation themselves, as the jury found, then that further suggests that the idea is not that novel. That wouldn't matter if AWS came to the very similar implementation on their own, after the Plaintiff's patent was issued (and became public information). Patent, unlike copyright, does not allow for independent invention/creation. If you come to, on your own, something already covered in a patent during its term, then you infringe.
- tsimionescu 2y ago
  Yes, it doesn't matter for determining if you are infringing on the patent. But it does matter for (a) the kinds of damages that you can be liable for, and (b) it can matter if you try to attack the patent itself to try to get it invalidated. Patents are only supposed to be granted for non-obvious ideas, so one way of attacking a patent is to show that many people came up with that idea independently, which is a strong argument that the idea doesn't pass the non-obviousness test and can get the patent invalidated.
  - freejazz 2y ago
    Yes, they can be evidence that invalidates a patent if they qualify as prior art.

zamalek 2y ago

Aren't those patents expired? It's been >20yr since application.

skywhopper 2y ago
S3 debuted in 2006.
tsimionescu 2y ago
They are, but the lawsuit was filed in 2018 when they were still in force. And the infringement is even older, so they can still claim damages for the whole period between AWS launch and 2020/2021.