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Google Earth Lawsuit Over Sky layer

posted by lxnyce on Friday February 15, @09:30PM        Permalink  Trackback URI  Slashdotthis  Diggthis  Del.icio.us
from the Pie-in-the-sky-claims dept.

CNET is currently running an article about this new development. From their summary : "A former Google contractor is suing the company for allegedly stealing from him the idea for the Sky layer in Google Earth.

The lawsuit filed this week in federal district court in Atlanta seeks punitive damages of $25 million from Google.

Jonathan Cobb claims in his suit that he disclosed the idea for a Google Sky idea in internal e-mail discussion groups when he worked at Google as a contractor beginning in 2006.

The Google Earth Sky layer, when it launched in August 2007, was similar in interface and functionality to what he had conceptualized, Cobb claims. "

For a more detailed report, please visit the CNET article link above.

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• When in 2006?

  (Score:2, Interesting)

  by withak (1069) on Friday February 15, @10:30PM (#2196)

  NASA put a sky layer in World Wind in approximately April 2006.

  [ Reply to This ]
  • Re:When in 2006?

    (Score:3, Informative)

    by lxnyce (1043) on Saturday February 16, @09:17AM (#2197)
    ( http://www.vizure.com/ )

    Ogle Earth [ogleearth.com] has more information on it.
    
    It will be good to see how this turns out. I see where he is coming from, but that's the pitfalls of contracting I believe. Now if he coded it up and they just used his application without compensating him...that would have made for a good lawsuit.

    [ Reply to This | Parent ]
    • Re:When in 2006?

      (Score:3, Insightful)

      by daedlus (1494) on Tuesday February 19, @09:04PM (#2204)

      The lawsuit is moot because he never patented the idea in the first place. People can "steal your ideas" all they want until you patent said ideas. Then it becomes illegal. Moreover, he was on the company's payroll at the time of disclosure of said idea, making it possibly fall under the terms of his contract (would have to review to know for certain). Finally, he didn't even provide a proof of concept, which would be required in a patent claim anyway. So, he didn't apply for a patent, he wouldn't have gotten one had he applied, and the company might own the idea defacto anyway. This will go nowhere.

      [ Reply to This | Parent ]
• Prior art?

  (Score:2, Funny)

  by fotoguzzi (964) on Sunday February 17, @04:39AM (#2199)

  http://www.gsfc.nasa.gov/gsfc/earth/pictures/2002/ 1203apollo17/earth.jpg [nasa.gov]
  
  Okay, I'm not being serious, but . . .

  [ Reply to This ]