style="margin-top:70px;" Clickstream

Clickstream

     
Informatica Wins Round 1 in Patent Lawsuit Against Business Objects

The latest case in the ETL space is an old lawsuit between Informatica and Acta that carried forward when Business Objects bought Acta. It's hard to tell if this is a slow news day or is actually meaningful to the ETL business. My guess: slow news day.

INFA went for the expected "we want an injunction to stop them from selling the product" and BOBJ responded with the usual "we'll swap out the code if the court upholds this." Depending on breadth of the infringement, that could be tough.

I read the two patents in question - 6014670 and 6339775 - and they're pretty dry reading. It's hard to work out the exact breadth of the patents since companies try to word patents to cover the maximum breadth, sort of like stretching the last of the butter on too much toast. In this case the patent could be read specifically, but certain parts are an attempt to go wide, e.g. take data from point A, transform it, and drop it in point B, using metadata and an intermediate language. If you read it loosely, you get the impression that SQL and scripting languages infringe.

I haven't seen the court documents so I can't see how and where the patent applicability was narrowed by Business Objects in this case, or what specific features were determined to be infringing. More dry reading awaits.

I'm not a fan of software patents. Most of the time they're complete crap based on so much prior art that the person submitting should be put in thumbscrews. My first scan of the patents took me down this path. An actual reading made me think that there was more substance, but I was so sleepy by the end that I might have been dreaming. Until I see more documentation it's hard to say whether this has any import for any other ETL vendors out there. At the moment, it seems unlikely given that the lawsuit is over four years old.

Labels: , , ,


Comments: Post a Comment

Home

Data warehousing, business intelligence, IT strategy and architecture, and occasional interesting bits.


Subscribe to XML feed


Bio / About Me


Check out my book

Clickstream data warehousing book cover Buy clickstream data warehousing from Amazon.com

Search this site or  the web



Site search   Web search
powered by FreeFind
Popular Posts
Primate programming.
Why development in crunch mode doesn't work.
Enterprise data modeling sucks big rocks.
XP Exaggerated.
Ping-pong in the matrix.
Time management for anarchists.
Is Ab Initio worth evaluating?
Job posting: omniscient architect.
Why hiring more sales people won't grow revenues faster.
Some resources for Open Source CMS.

Reading List
Quicksilver
The Cruise of the Snark
Blue Latitudes
Everyone in Silico
The Klamath Knot
Swarm Intelligence (Bonabeau)
A three year backlog of F&SF

Listening List
Toots and the Maytals
The Buena Vista Social Club
American Idiot

Watching List
Winged Migration Quicktime trailer
Ghengis Blues
Howl's Moving Castls
Hero
A Bronx Tale

Blogroll
Daily KOS
Due Diligence
Boing Boing
Kevin Kelly (Recomendo)
Not Geniuses
3 Quarks Daily
Futurismic
Fafblog
Kottke.org

Miscellany
War in Context
Salon.com
Valmiki's Ramayana
Choose the Blue
Third Nature
Mark Madsen
The Data Warehouse Institute
James Howard Kunstler
WorldChanging
/.
Clickstream Data Warehousing
Technorati Profile

Archives
04/01/2003 - 05/01/2003 05/01/2003 - 06/01/2003 06/01/2003 - 07/01/2003 07/01/2003 - 08/01/2003 08/01/2003 - 09/01/2003 09/01/2003 - 10/01/2003 10/01/2003 - 11/01/2003 11/01/2003 - 12/01/2003 12/01/2003 - 01/01/2004 05/01/2004 - 06/01/2004 06/01/2004 - 07/01/2004 07/01/2004 - 08/01/2004 08/01/2004 - 09/01/2004 09/01/2004 - 10/01/2004 10/01/2004 - 11/01/2004 11/01/2004 - 12/01/2004 12/01/2004 - 01/01/2005 01/01/2005 - 02/01/2005 02/01/2005 - 03/01/2005 03/01/2005 - 04/01/2005 05/01/2005 - 06/01/2005 06/01/2005 - 07/01/2005 07/01/2005 - 08/01/2005 08/01/2005 - 09/01/2005 09/01/2005 - 10/01/2005 10/01/2005 - 11/01/2005 11/01/2005 - 12/01/2005 12/01/2005 - 01/01/2006 01/01/2006 - 02/01/2006 03/01/2006 - 04/01/2006 05/01/2006 - 06/01/2006 06/01/2006 - 07/01/2006 07/01/2006 - 08/01/2006 08/01/2006 - 09/01/2006 09/01/2006 - 10/01/2006 10/01/2006 - 11/01/2006 01/01/2007 - 02/01/2007 02/01/2007 - 03/01/2007 03/01/2007 - 04/01/2007 04/01/2007 - 05/01/2007 05/01/2007 - 06/01/2007 06/01/2007 - 07/01/2007 07/01/2007 - 08/01/2007 08/01/2007 - 09/01/2007 09/01/2007 - 10/01/2007 10/01/2007 - 11/01/2007 11/01/2007 - 12/01/2007 12/01/2007 - 01/01/2008 01/01/2008 - 02/01/2008 02/01/2008 - 03/01/2008 03/01/2008 - 04/01/2008 08/01/2008 - 09/01/2008 06/01/2009 - 07/01/2009 08/01/2009 - 09/01/2009 10/01/2009 - 11/01/2009 01/01/2010 - 02/01/2010 09/01/2011 - 10/01/2011 04/01/2013 - 05/01/2013


Powered by Blogger.

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under this Creative Commons License except where indicated.