• by Wendy Davis  @wendyndavis, November 13, 2007

In a move that strikes at the heart of Google's search business, Northeastern University has sued the company for patent infringement, claiming that Google's search engine relies on technology patented by a Northeastern professor in 1997.

In the lawsuit, quietly filed last Tuesday in the Marshall Division of the Eastern District of Texas, Northeastern professor Kenneth Baclawski alleges that he holds a patent for a key component of the search technology used by Google. Baclawski assigned the patent to Northeastern, which licensed it to his Waltham, Mass. search company, Jarg.

Northeastern and Jarg are seeking monetary damages and an injunction banning Google from continuing to use the technology.

Google says the case is baseless. "We believe the complaint to be without merit based upon our initial investigation," Google spokesman Jon Murchinson said in an e-mailed statement.

Baclawski was awarded patent No. 5,694,593, "Distributed computer database system and method," 10 years ago, but reportedly didn't become aware of the allegation that Google's search system violated his patent until two and a half years ago, when approached by a Boston law firm.

Ultimately Jarg and Northeastern hired Houston-based law firm, Vinson & Elkins, which agreed to take the case on a contingency fee basis. Jarg president and co-founder Michael Belanger says it took so long to file suit because lawyers were investigating the charges. "There had to be a lot of due diligence done by the law firms we approached," he says. "That took a considerable amount of time."

The Marshall division in Texas is famously patent-friendly, with plaintiffs winning patent lawsuits 78% of the time, according to The Boston Globe, which cited stats from the research firm LegalMetric.

In the lawsuit, Northeastern says it brought the case in Texas because Google "provides goods or services and does business" there.

Google, which has faced a variety of patent suits in the past, has advocated for stricter limits on where patent holders can bring suit. In a September blog post, Google's Johanna Shelton, policy counsel and legislative strategist, and Michelle Lee, head of patents and patent strategy, urged that the law be changed to require lawsuits be brought in localities with "a reasonable connection" to the case.