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Trade Secrets: Viacom and Google

A late post, sorry, but it seems some people just are not getting this (okay, high gas prices and an economy heading for the cellar and a presidential election might seem a bit more important) story about Court Rules Viacom Not Entitled To Google Trade Secrets:

"A federal judge ruled Wednesday that Google need not reveal details of its search algorithm or ad platform to Viacom, which had requested the information as part of its $1 billion copyright infringement lawsuit.

In a 25-page order, U.S. District Judge Louis Stanton in New York ruled that Viacom had not presented a good reason to force Google to reveal trade secrets like its search formula. 'The search code is the product of over a thousand person-years of work,' Stanton wrote. 'There is no dispute that its secrecy is of enormous commercial value. Someone with access to it could readily perceive its basic design principles, and cause catastrophic competitive harm to Google.'

Stanton also ruled that Viacom was not entitled to learn the details of Google's ad platform.

But the ruling did not go completely in Google's favor. Stanton ordered Google to provide Viacom with information about all videos that have been removed from the site--a figure that Google pegs in the millions."

Viacom seeking Google's trade secrets seems like overreaching by a company who trying to protect its copyrights. We may be seeing the change in copyrights (and patents, possibly) that has been sensed by many - that Viacom stands on one side of a debate over intellectual property while users stand on another. I know that sounds all abstract and vague, but consider this: Viacom and Sony Records and writers and all the others whose livelihoods depend on intellectual property find those livelihoods threatened unless a new business model is found.

Full post as published by Indiana Civil & Business Lawyer on July 11, 2008 (boomark / email).