Was Google Earth Stolen?
Great article.<p>I was actually responsible for invalidating another maps-related patent from the 1990s, in Germany. I was in Patent Litigation and I also remember having a "ART+COM" folder in my email, but that's about all I can remember. I don't think the case was very active by 2014.<p>Anyhow, there's something Avi said that I have to comment on:<p><i>The test for patent-worthiness is: “would it be non-obvious to someone who is skilled in the art?” I’d been doing “stupid programmer tricks” like this since high school, as have many others in my field.</i><p>If only it were so simple! You would <i>think</i> that "hey, that's just a stupid programmer trick!" would be enough to render something obvious, but you'd be wrong. That's what my paper [1] is about.<p>No, to call "obvious" the combination of references A and B, there usually has to be some "teaching, suggestion, or motivation" in the literature that it would be a good idea to combine A and B. There are nuances to this statement, in case anyone's feeling pedantic.<p>[1] <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2399580" rel="nofollow">https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2399580</a>