Google sued for patent infringement (Street View)

Last week CHRISTIE, PARKER & HALE stated that they have sued Google on behalf of their client Vederi LLC, for patent infringement based on Google street view (here). They tell us that “the complaint alleges that Google's Street View product infringes four of Vederi's patents by allowing a user to visually navigate streets within a geographic area”.

The history:

“Enrico Di Bernardo and Luis Goncalves, the founders of Vederi, LLC, met at Caltech while pursuing doctoral degrees. In 2000, when Luis was looking for a new apartment and wanted to know about different neighborhoods, they conceived of the idea to build a system to let Internet users look at street-level views of neighborhoods. They envisioned that their service could be syndicated in a number of online properties, including travel sites, business listings, real-estate listings, map and directions sites. That July, Luis and Enrico drove around Pasadena in Enrico's personal car, with a camera mounted on top of the car, collecting images and corresponding GPS coordinates for their first system, the ScoutTool, later renamed the StreetBrowser. The StreetBrowser system, that lets Internet visitors look at panoramas of streets and visually navigate around a neighborhood, was hosted on the website of the City of Pasadena for several years in the early 2000s. Vederi's first provisional patent application for its system was filed in October 2000” [I’m sure the patent was filed before hosting the system in the Internet]

The invention:

First patent application was filed on October 6, 2000. Apparently the patent wasn’t granted, but benefits were claimed in Patent no. 6,895,126 (here). Among other things it claims:

“12. A method for creating a composite image database of a particular geographic area, the method comprising: recording a plurality of images of a series of objects using an image recording device moving along a path; obtaining position information of the image recording device as the image recording device moves along the path; associating the position information with the plurality of images; processing image data acquired from the plurality of images to create a composite image depicting a view of the series of objects from a particular location; partitioning the path into a plurality of discrete segments; associating the composite image to one of the discrete segments; and storing the composite image and association information in the composite image database”.

“28. A system for creating a composite image of a series of objects, the system comprising: an image recording device moving along a path and recording a plurality of images of the objects; a means for receiving position information of the image recording device as the image recording device moves along the path; and a processor receiving the plurality of images and position information, the processor being operable to execute program instructions including: associating the position information with the plurality of images; and processing image data acquired from the plurality of images to create a composite image representing the object, wherein the composite image simulates a view of the object from a particular location that is situated off of the path of the image recording device”.

I wonder why it has taken more than three years to file the action. Street View was launched on May 25, 2007 (here) and Patent no. 6,895,126 was granted on May 17, 2005. Is this a new chapter of “living in strange times”? (here). Time will tell.