[mbreese]

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]

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]

How are you supposed to not infringe on patents that were not granted yet?

[tsimionescu]

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.

[sokoloff]

> Still, patents become public from the moment they are filed.

No. There is an 18 month delay to publication: https://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/pac/mpep/s1120.html

[tsimionescu]

Oh, I wasn't aware, thanks for correcting me!

[irjustin]

You have to show that you were already working on it independently which is effectively establishing prior art and you are literally it.

How do you do that? beyond my pay grade.

[zaroth]

Simple - You keep a notebook, or send yourself emails.

If you want more definitive timestamping, there are services that will do that, like OpenTimestamps, an actually a decent use case for blockchain.

[hughesjj]

I'd say thank God for git history but I suppose they were using perforce back then

[mbreese]

Lustre started out as a research project in 1999, before commercialization and release. I assume this means more was publicly available about the design prior to the patents being filed.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lustre_(file_system)

Also, depending on the feature set listed in the patent, GPFS (which I remember using around 2000) was definitely around earlier than 2000. It was/is a clustered file system from IBM that had distributed storage nodes. Not sure how it did metadata though, which might not make it relevant to the patent, but the same ideas were definitely at work here.

(And it being IBM, you can be sure those were patented too)

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/GPFS