
Google accused of racketeering in lawsuit - Jerry2
http://www.mercurynews.com/2017/10/06/google-accused-of-racketeering-in-lawsuit-claiming-pattern-of-trade-secrets-theftt/
======
alehul
> Google did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but a judge in
> the case noted last year that the firm has argued that Attia gave Google
> rights to his technology “without a condition of later payment.”

So Google's defense isn't even that the substance of the accusations are
false, but that they had the legal ability to do so?

Is this common behavior for Google, if the story is true?

This may be naive, but it seems downright illogical to act like that with a
reputation as huge and important as Google's. I'd be concerned if I were a
collaborator.

~~~
rdtsc
> Is this common behavior for Google, if the story is true?

It depends on details of his contract. It's quite plausible his employment
contract in "Project X" did say that he would transfer knowledge and ideas in
exchange for money. It's pretty standard stuff.

In other words, it might not be exactly a slam dunk case. A racketeering
charge seems pretty outrageous as well.

However if Google did these things (which looks like they did), it would make
them look shady. Maybe legally in the clear but ethically like you said, it
would seem they threw their reputation under the bus.

Maybe once companies are a certain size they think they are untouchable and
say stuff like "Yeah this is shady, but we've got lawyers and PR people to
handle this, no biggie"

And this is why maybe a charge like racketeering is nice move - it might not
be winnable in court, but it is outrageous enough to damage Google's
reputation. Had it been some mundane case over a minor legal term, we wouldn't
have found out.

~~~
paul7986
Based on my similar experience with Google ATAP I bet they do this a lot! I've
detailed my experience below...

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15422475](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15422475)

~~~
rdtsc
Oh wow. That was pretty brazen of them. They sized you up and decided "What's
the chance they'll have resources to sue us? No much probably. So just take
their idea and go with it".

------
londons_explore
As a former insider, I can tell you likely pre-story which might cast a
different light on this:

* Google employee comes up with an idea.

* They go and research the idea to check if there are any already existing companies which do it.

* If any are found, they meet and decide if they should buy the company, reinvent the idea, or that it isn't relevant.

* If, after investigation it is determined the company's tech isn't good enough, they will re-invent. Google has fairly strict tech requirements (no php, no shady licenses/ownership, no pirated stuff, etc.), so many companies don't pass.

* When they reinvent, they will do it "clean room" \- ie. none of the people who reviewed the original company will be involved in the re-invention.

~~~
rebelde
This is off-topic, but "no php"?

~~~
tyingq
Guess they would have passed on Facebook then.

~~~
Aissen
And Facebook has written a transpiler to C++, then a new language based on
PHP, and a VM for it. Seems like quite an investment.

To over-simplify, Google probably just tunes the Hotspot JVM.

~~~
tyingq
Uh. Google reimplemented all of java for Android. And then invented a whole
new language to replace their internal use of C.

And now, of course, dart and flutter, on a new OS to replace the Linux
underpinnings.

------
greydata
So the contention is that Google stole his idea for building design software?
His representation is a bunch of patent trolls and the suit has already been
going on for 3 years. The only news is now they are contending that many major
Google products are based on coordinated and systematic IP theft (Search, Ads,
Maps, Wallet, Hangouts, Youtube, Android). Pretty sure this is entirely
bullshit.

Actual lawsuit:
[http://digitalcommons.law.scu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?articl...](http://digitalcommons.law.scu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2524&context=historical)

~~~
erdojo
Thanks for posting the link. I just read the first several pages, and I
disagree with your conclusion.

This was more than a simple idea or patent. It was developed by someone with
extensive experience in a vertical industry. Google actually paid to contract
with him to develop a proof-of-concept, with the idea if the tech panned out
and had market viability, they'd take it to market with him.

Google doesn't hire patent trolls or rely on their expertise in developing
products.

The lawsuit is full of hyperbole (which hurts it in IMHO), but the underlying
claim looks pretty believable.

------
gamesbrainiac
In simple terms, google baited people with good ideas to join google x labs.
Then pursued to cancel the projects, and thus cutting out the people who
originated these ideas. Finally, google went on to use these ideas to create
their own technology, and some have even graduated from Google X Labs.

Basically, evil incubation.

~~~
noncoml
You state it as it is fact. That’s what the plaintiff claims, yes. But it
doesn’t mean it’s true.

~~~
ComputerGuru
_If_ , as hinted in the article based off a judge in the case’s remarks, and
Google’s defense is “we were under no obligation to compensate him” then it
does seem that it is what went down.

~~~
aneutron
They have to deal with thousands of patent trolls. I'm assuming that they have
to do this, otherwise they'd set a precedent, not strictly in the court room,
that they have been subdued. IANAL, but I think that any firm of this size
would be aggressive when you start throwing such statements.

------
Top19
Wow this story is shocking. I want to point out it’s quite believable if you
look at this situation historically. Microsoft was known for doing this exact
same thing. Their tactic was to wine and dine startups, give them the “big
megacorp company treatment”, ask them to divulge just a little of how they
were doing what they were doing. Then they would go back to Seattle, put out
an identical product 6 weeks later, and dare the company to sue them. Also
another tactic of theirs was to get their executives or those on their payroll
onto the boards of startups, sometimes as advisors, and then feed info back to
MSFT. Their behavior has changed a ton from then I want to point out, but now
looks like Google has picked up where they left off...

~~~
paul7986
Google did something similar to me as I have detailed in this thread below....

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15422475](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15422475)

It's very relevant to this story and I think it's important for it to be told
to warn other inventors how Google treats the little guy/girl!

~~~
Top19
Hey have read your story Paul and sorry about that. FWIW even Oracle tried to
sue them, and Oracle has never been known for not going 100% ruthless or going
cheap on their lawyers / law talent, and even they failed. The only one who
can stop them now is the government. Democrats are already lining up against
them, and in the congressional district I live in, even the very conservative
Lamar Smith recently sent them an angry letter regarding various accusations.
They are being hemmed in by both sides, and if politics gets better the
cooperation of both parties will lead to their massacre, and if it gets worse,
they’ll be the scapegoat likely and equally massacred. I hope that provides
some solace. The breakup of Google and Facebook will also unleash a flood of
talented engineers for places they are more needed than shitty advertising
companies, maybe you can partner with one of them when the dam breaks.

------
propman
This is just plain scummy. Their defense is a that it's legal but this is just
plain ridiculous. How do you fight a company that has a team of lawyers that
can sink you for years and doing so prevents future attempts from happening.

I think the NDA meetings that result in what the lawsuits allege. Note,
allege. Should have more stringent regulations to protect the smaller guy.
Also google sinking its paws into everything and in many cases misbehaving
makes me glad that we have sensible regulations against monopolies if it ever
gets that far

~~~
sverige
It got that far long a few years ago at least. If we had sensible enforcement
of the regulations and laws against monopolies, Google would have been broken
up already.

------
Teever
Man it would be so terrifying going up against Google in court.

How do you do research? How do you communicate with your lawyer?

They know everything about what you do, when you do it, and who you do it
with.

~~~
klodolph
If you sue the phone company, they don't cut off your service or tap your
phones.

~~~
Teever
You would be surprised.

[http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/telus-cuts-subscriber-
access-t...](http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/telus-cuts-subscriber-access-to-
pro-union-website-1.531166)

------
uptownfunk
Will be very interesting to see what happens. I do think that companies as big
as google certainly seem untouchable. They have a huge amount of resources
that could probably flood you with paperwork and litigation. Kudos to this guy
for sticking up for his beliefs, at any cost.

------
rasz
Lets not forget Google trying to steal ANS as their own invention, filling for
patents covering >100 countries.

------
jarym
The best way this can affect Google is if the people they want to 'partner'
with in the future turn around and tell them: "sorry you guys have a
reputation now for being untrustworthy partners. We'd love to work with you
but you will have to pay up big and first before we even share even the
smallest details"

------
johansch
It has been going on for a while:

[https://www.theverge.com/2015/2/17/8048779/google-x-eli-
atti...](https://www.theverge.com/2015/2/17/8048779/google-x-eli-attia-
lawsuit-flux-architecture)

This 2008 patent application has a number of interesting illustrations:

[https://www.google.com/patents/US20090234696](https://www.google.com/patents/US20090234696)

(note the actually granted Google patents that reference this one)

Seems like the original idea was LEGO-like modular system of components that
can be combined into buildings.

~~~
jaclaz
>Seems like the original idea was LEGO-like modular system of components that
can be combined into buildings.

Which in itself it is not entirely new and largely pre-dates the advent of
computers as we know them today.

In the '80's and '90's there were all sorts of experiments in the field, it
was a "trend" explored in many countries, "modular building prefabrication".

I was involved in the time in several projects (and actual constructions)
though surely things may have become easier today (thanks to CAD, CAE and new
materials/techniques), at the time the results were not as good as hypothized
in the patent, aspecially for "civil" buildings.

Specifically there was a definite saving of time in the building phase, BUT
the resulting building was either at a "lower" standard/level than a more
traditional construction or - to have the same standard/level - the costs were
not so much lower.

The base concept has been used for decades in "industrial" buildings, such as
factories and warehouses, however those used a much lesser number of different
(and simpler) components, and more or less they are anyway always a
parallelepiped of some kind.

Simply (and not so surprisingly) the techniques developed at the time for
houses/office buildings made only sense in very large scale projects as the
cost of (besides constructing them and assembling them) storing, managing and
transporting/delivering the components killed the economic savings possible in
theory.

If (when) a "build components on demand" scheme and a "continuous flow of
production" was possible it did make sense, unfortunately this is not what
normally happens in the real world, there were months/years when the
production was lower than demand and then for _whatever_ reasons there were
months/years with no or very low demand, thus costs of plants ate the savings.

~~~
johansch
(Thanks for the perspective, that was interesting.)

Btw, modular/semi-modular home construction is a pretty big thing here in
Sweden. Seems like most standalone homes are built that way nowadays. I had
earlier assumed it was similar elsewhere, but it seems like it isn't dominant
in most other places.

I guess our horrible climate makes it nicer/more profitable to build modules
in a climate-controlled factory than on a wintery/coldish/raining building
site. Contrast that to e.g. California - decent climate all year around. I'm
also guessing that our high taxes on work and a lack of a low-paid builder
workforce also contributes to making automation of housing module
manufacturing worthwhile.

See e.g.

[https://www.treehugger.com/modular-design/sweden-they-are-
bu...](https://www.treehugger.com/modular-design/sweden-they-are-building-
high-quality-multifamily-wood-prefabs-we-can-only-dream-about-here.html)

(It's not just one house manufacturing company doing these, there are loads of
them around the country; I think the typical size is a couple of hundred
people. With lots and lots of automation. Not quite sure why large-scale
consolidation hasn't happened yet - I'm guessing it's because these companies
tend to be privately/family-owned.)

[http://www.globalconstructionreview.com/trends/why-sweden-
be...](http://www.globalconstructionreview.com/trends/why-sweden-beats-
world-h8an0ds-4d2own0-6p4r2e0f8ab/)

"About 84% of detached houses in Sweden use prefabricated timber elements,
while in developed economies such as the US, Australia and the UK, no more
than 5% of permanent housing has any significant prefabrication."

~~~
jaclaz
>I guess our horrible climate makes it nicer/more profitable to build modules
in a climate-controlled factory than on a wintery/coldish/raining building
site. Contrast that to e.g. California - decent climate all year around. I'm
also guessing that our high taxes on work and a lack of a low-paid builder
workforce also contributes to making automation of housing module
manufacturing worthwhile.

Sure, that's part of the reasons, but while smallish, "standalone" homes (1-5
floors) can be (and are actually) prefabricated (particularly if based on
timber elements, but not only) the mentioned patent (and the personal
experience I reported) was for "large" condo or office type buildings, multi-
storey (6 or more floors), with a steel or concrete structure, that however
allow (or allowed) the architect to introduce his/her own designs (within
limits).

BTW - and as a side note - timber based construction have a lot of issues in
many countries where strict fire regulations exist, generally speaking single
or few apartments homes "fly below" the requirements, but large condos, office
and public buildings would never meet fire standards or - in order to respect
them - have an unbearable building overcost when compared to steel/concrete.

But what I was trying to highlight is that while prefabricating allows
definitely for faster building (and this is particularly evident in the
countries, like your Sweden, where the climate is adverse) the claim (of the
patent) to save 30 or 40% of the building costs is hard to believe.

I mean, one thing is an alternative technology, and another one is an
alternative technology capable of saving several tens per cent of the building
costs.

The usual (traditional) reference for prefabricated houses (I am not in any
way affiliated to them) in Europe is the (German) HufHaus (which is in the
business by some 100 years or so) :

[https://www.huf-haus.com/](https://www.huf-haus.com/)

AFAIK at the end of the day they provide exceptionally well engineered and
built products but their cost is on par with (in some cases higher than) a
"same level" locally built house.

A key point (that many people seem to forget) which makes me personally (where
possible) support the prefabricated home concept is that the quality you can
obtain in the factory (because of the "right" environment, because the actual
workers are highly specialized in each specific task they do, because each and
every detail has been already engineered, tested, failed and re-engineered to
near perfection) rarely can be obtained locally, still I never found a big
difference costwise.

~~~
johansch
Yeah, sure, I got the difference between these prefab home modules vs prefab
parts for very large buildings. I don't really expect these things to
translate into the building of 20+ story office/apartment skyscrapers. Totally
different domains.

I think that last paragraph (about specialization vs being a local jack of all
trades) has a loth of truth to it.

Having lived in the Swedish outback.. without these modular homes made in
factories it's all about your personal connections to local people who can do
building work. There is no other way of making sure that your house gets built
correctly. This obviously doesn't make for a very dynamic marketplace. People
get screwed constantly. (So that's a plus for prefab factories - it's a lot
easier to screen their quality than for individual contractors - out of sheer
volume of customers.)

------
noncoml
The article presents only one side of the story.

I have never heard of Google being accused of something similar in the past.
Does anyone have any pointers to similar incidents?

~~~
kuschku
It also presents Google’s answer, which was

> that Attia gave Google rights to his technology “without a condition of
> later payment.”

They admit they did it, but claim they were in the right to do it.

~~~
ithkuil
Could that mean that the condition was immediate payment? (Salary,bonus,
stock, ...)

~~~
kuschku
Or it could have been that he only gets paid if that very specific project
would make profit, etc.

There’s many way to write such a contract.

------
paul7986
I had a similar experience with Google; a mutual NDA was signed as seen here
[https://goo.gl/K9Wd1U](https://goo.gl/K9Wd1U).

\- Feb 2013 created SpeakerBlast; turn multiple devices into one sync speaker
via a URL

\- March 2013 Samsung released the Galaxy 4 with Group Play (same concept as
SpeakerBlast)

\- April 2013 Google/Motorola emails/calls me asking would I sell SpeakerBlast
for inclusion into the Moto X

\- May 2013 Fly out from Baltimore to demo/meet with Google ATAP in the hopes
of fulfilling my goal/dream of being a successful inventor. During the meeting
they bait my partner and I for our secret sauce then leave the room. They come
back and say time to go and lead us to the elevator and say the race is on.
See ya!

As the David in this David n Goliath story I have no idea if our work was used
in Chrome Audio or not. The head of that unit is run by the Google ATAP tech
lead we met with.

Ive heard this is just how it is in Silicon Valley.. treat the little guy and
girls like crap. Take their hard work, steal it and stomp on them. Things need
to change!!!

~~~
saimiam
_> Things need to change!!!_

How _should_ things change? I genuinely feel for you so keep the rest of what
I'm going to say at arms distance.

The way I see it, you are essentially asking people not to learn from each
other. Software is not basic science where, if you discover a process or a
particle, you are putting into words something outside the human brain.

Software (mathematical formulations aside) describes how the brain works.
Anyone can hear a high level description of your SpeakerBlast an imagine a way
to sync speakers. Their implementation might be radically different to yours
but there is no way for you to stop me from imagining a solution based simply
on your two sentence description of the product.

If you want to learn more about this process, there's a book by a
neuroscientist, The Tell-Tale Brain by VS Ramachandran, which delves into the
process of mirroring and meme spreading.

~~~
arkj
>The way I see it, you are essentially asking people not to learn from each
other.

I dont think he sayimg anything like that. There's a big difference between
learning from each other and baiting you for your secret sauce.

~~~
saimiam
1\. Baiting _is_ learning though.

2\. "Baiting" is an opinion. I have no doubt OP got baited in his view but to
Google, it might have been simply the asking of questions.

Maybe the questions were asked to make sure OP's technology was sufficiently
different and inferior to whatever they themselves launched. If that were the
case, it wouldn't be baiting. It'd be discovery.

------
vikingmetal
Just for context, Eli Attia, the architect, is not really the one pursuing the
claim against Google here.

A company called Max Sound [1], whose only line of business seems to be suing
Google, bought rights to sue over this in May 2014 and then sued Google in Dec
2014 [2]. They seem to have filed at least one other somewhat questionable
lawsuit against Google in the past [3].

[1] [http://maxd.audio/](http://maxd.audio/)

[2]
[http://app.quotemedia.com/quotetools/newsStoryPopup.go?story...](http://app.quotemedia.com/quotetools/newsStoryPopup.go?storyId=8080766090411988&topic=MAXD&symbology=null&cp=null&webmasterId=101345)

[3] [http://www.reuters.com/article/us-max-sound-google-
lawsuit/m...](http://www.reuters.com/article/us-max-sound-google-lawsuit/max-
sound-files-patent-suit-against-google-youtube-in-germany-
idUSKBN0JQ0IA20141212)

------
bitL
Hmm, all these news just tell me the winning strategy is no longer being
generous like it was in 00s, where free/open source/access exploded, rather
selfishly secretively keep all information to your advantage to yourself. Not
sure I'd like to live in such a society. Can't wait to have enforced-by-
automation toxic daily life.

~~~
alexasmyths
This is the way it has always been.

The Valley is a paradox of open/fsf types and mega corps which can
simultaneously be very good and very evil.

Google's ownership of the web could enable them to do a zillion evil things if
they wanted to, which they don't.

Google could easily control the outcomes of elections.

They could easily sell companies the ability to change how their company is
perceived, rankings etc.

Granted some of that may actually be illegal, but I think if G were a regular
corp they'd have tried to do some really bad things.

That said, I do think they do some bad things.

So it's a paradoxy kind of thing.

------
StanislavPetrov
From Edison to Jobs its the American way..

~~~
bitL
Funny how we were told Larry Page was weeping when he learned the fate of
Nikola Tesla...

~~~
eternalban
Maybe he was weeping over the lost opportunity.

------
ijafri
>Google's leadership profoundly betrayed the longtime personal trust and
friendship of Apple's leadership in stealing what Steve Jobs believed were
Apple's most prized possessions.

You may think it’s a coincidence, but then you realize it isn’t.

[https://verbose.co/33](https://verbose.co/33)

~~~
rodgerd
Ah yes, Steve Jobs would be quite the guy to lecture anyone about betrayls of
trust and friendship.

~~~
wpietri
I'm not sure why this is getting downvoted. Early on he blatantly cheated
Wozniak: [http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/steve-wozniak-cried-jobs-kept-
atari...](http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/steve-wozniak-cried-jobs-kept-atari-
bonus-267711)

~~~
carapace
Remember when they (Adobe, Apple Inc., Google, Intel, Intuit, Pixar, Lucasfilm
and eBay [1]) colluded to keep each other from competing for talent and
driving up wages?

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-
Tech_Employee_Antitrust_L...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-
Tech_Employee_Antitrust_Litigation)

~~~
ShabbosGoy
Kabuki Theatre for the proles.

------
nova22033
Someone filed a lawsuit against a company with deep pockets?

Is it just me or has there been an increase of anti-google piling on after the
James Damore thing?

~~~
tyingq
The lawsuit has existed for a couple of years. The news is that accusations of
racketeering were recently added. That's highly unusual, and so, newsworthy.

------
LeeHwang
At Comcast, we often joke Google is more evil than us. So I'm not surprised by
this.

------
ComodoHacker
Can someone ELI5 whats the core tech behind Project Genie or Flux? What I've
found are some vague descriptions like "Flux provides seamless data exchange
between industry design tools such as Rhino and Revit".

------
fujiters
>"It’s even worse than just using the proprietary information — they actually
then claim ownership through patent applications,” Buether said.

Why didn't Attia patent everything already? He'd been working on it for 50
years.

I suspect Google is really just getting into the building design software
space but not using Attia's work and Attia thought he was now a part of _any_
effort by Google in building design software.

------
trhway
if that is an internal culture at Google, that may somewhat explain how
Levandowski and his people may not personally felt any duty to follow basic
morals toward Google. I mean i'm not trying to justify their actions, and
personally i find Levandowski's actions smelling pretty bad, i'm just saying
that at the system level it seems to be karma at work.

------
influx
Where are all the people who are always disclaiming to work for Google in
every thread about Google? Weird you’re silent on this.

~~~
theDoug
Since you asked, it's 11:36pm and I just got home from drinking wine with a
friend. I'm making a pastrami sandwich and might fall asleep soon. Can't speak
for others, though. Thanks for your curiosity.

Thankfully, your honor, most of us are smart enough to know to not play unpaid
internet forum lawyer.

~~~
Bucephalus355
Are you going to put the disclaimer though in your post at the bottom?

~~~
ocdtrekkie
It's somewhat obvious by the content of his post. (I do actually really
appreciate when people do disclose their conflicts here. Thanks to those of
you who do.)

theDoug is also not wrong, to be fair. There's no situation in which a Google
employee who is not a lawyer publicly commenting on a lawsuit against Google
works out well for the employee. Anything he says could get his employer in
additional trouble, and as an employee, commenting on a legal case is really,
really easy grounds for termination, pretty much anywhere. Whether he agrees
with the article or not, nothing he says ends up beneficial to him, so it just
makes sense to not comment.

~~~
Gigablah
I'm just astounded that this needs explaining in the first place. Common sense
is not that common.

------
applecorruption
Google is dirty player. I have very little trust on google! They company
politics are violating people's rights. They are manipulating and deleting
peoples accounts if they political agenda is not google's agenda. Sad sad
google. You are just like any other corporation like facebook and twitter.

Freedom of speech?? \- you must be joking

------
wslh
Much more information in this article from 2014
[http://www.globes.co.il/en/article-architect-eli-attia-
sues-...](http://www.globes.co.il/en/article-architect-eli-attia-sues-google-
for-stealing-invention-1000993300)

------
jamilbk
The problem with “Don’t be evil” is that evil is subjective.

~~~
659087
The problem with "Don't be evil" is that it was nothing but an underhanded PR
stunt to begin with.

~~~
walshemj
yes they didn't state if was LE NE or CE they where talking about :-)

------
zaptheimpaler
Straight out of Silicon Valley (the TV show)..

------
thinkloop
This made me question my understanding of NDAs - are they supposed to restrict
usage by the party you told the secret to, or only that they can't share with
others?

~~~
wpietri
It depends on the NDA. But one of the important things you should always think
about with a contract is your power to enforce it. Even a small lawsuit can be
expensive and painful. Are you willing an able to go the distance against the
defendant? If not, the language of the contract doesn't matter.

------
QAPereo
That’s pretty much unequivocally evil, right? Seriously though, if this guy
has a real case, Google is going to have a truly miserable time in court.

~~~
ocdtrekkie
It depends. The article suggests the plaintiff may not have properly protected
his intellectual property ahead of time. It may be very hard to get a court to
side against Google if what Google did was _technically_ legal.

Evil and illegal are two different things, and sadly, they quite often do not
align.

~~~
alehul
IANAL, but: Is that the reason behind the racketeering charge?

They've developed a method of systematic theft of IP, which, though
technically legal as an isolated incident, shows malicious intent when strung
together.

Is that enough to satisfy the charge, or are they still protected?

------
zby
OK - so what is the take away for startups? It is common that investors don't
want to sign NDAs. And it is mostly OK, because in most cases the investor
does only investing and he cannot use the ideas on his own, so his best bet is
to make a deal with the startup, but if your potential investor is a big corpo
- then you need a lot more careful.

------
sitkack
Sounds un-googley.

------
tinmandespot
Clickbait

------
idibidiart
Larry and Sergey must have watched too much Shark Tank... what buffonary if
the evidence stands scrutiny

------
rurban
I call this bullshit.

> "Project Genie to educate Google about his proprietary ideas and techniques
> so they could develop a working proof of concept of his Engineered
> Architecture technology"

Parametric design and integration into AEC is industry standard since the
80-ies, and a long-time goal of virtually all design software manufacturers.
Everybody had a take on this moonshot, and eventually it will get there.

It started with Christopher Alexanders "Design Patterns", when he won a city
planning competition for the rebuilding of a destroyed Lima, Peru by offering
simple recursive design patterns and not a grand master plan. In the following
decades this was being incooperated into various design tools. In the 90ies I
based a university course on that ("Computer Assistet Planning"), and there
were several others also worldwide. City planning is obviously easiest, as
there are almost no physics involved, AEC also easy but problematic because
the heterogeneous SW used (needing API's, needing a strong partner), and
construction being the hardest (Think of AutoCAD vs Revit). Allia thought of
the Neufert standards as design patterns. Good goal, but by far not
proprietary and revolutionary. Most of us working on that had far more than
Allia.

Going to Google with this plan is also extremely naive. There's only AutoDESK
to go to with such a project.

An earlier overview is that article
[https://www.theverge.com/2015/2/17/8048779/google-x-eli-
atti...](https://www.theverge.com/2015/2/17/8048779/google-x-eli-attia-
lawsuit-flux-architecture) A current take on city planning is the City Engine:
[http://www.esri.com/software/cityengine/free-
trial](http://www.esri.com/software/cityengine/free-trial)

~~~
eternalban
They were not "recursive", as I recall. Care to share a few patterns?

~~~
rurban
Here is a newer book about such patterns:
[http://buildz.blogspot.de/2010/12/parametric-design-
patterns...](http://buildz.blogspot.de/2010/12/parametric-design-
patterns.html?m=1)

Recursive pattern expansion is the most powerful. Think of Lindenmayer
L-Systems to generate plants or fractal image compression. Graphical pattern
matching would be a breakthrough way to simplify usage if such a tool. This
was studied in the late 80ies.

~~~
eternalban
Well, that was patronizing. (I was doing L-system based design in '91 in Arch
school. :)

The question to you sir was: which patterns in Alexander's book are
"recursive".

