gpiyush

With whole lot of due respect to your experience, I'd still like to say a few things:

1. If a small feature is tricky to do and has a lot of strategic importance for a bigger platform, it makes complete sense to go for it and also protect the IP for it. We did just that.

You may be aware that Microsoft ended up paying huge money to Ric Richardson for his obvious technology which could have been thought of by 1000s of people before. It's just that he implemented it earlier and protected it as well.

2. >> And thinking you can outcompete Google on a "technical" innovation is folly.

We still feel that our solution is better than Google's even today. It may sound little finicky but we can prove it as well.

3. We were always aware that Google would do it some day. Yahoo did it earlier and we were cool. Microsoft is still struggling to achieve it. We just got hurt because G guys talked to us earlier and their official story looks too hollow.

Let me also confess that we have filed for a patent already and that many people guided us that we can potentially allege Google to be infringing on our patent. But because we still don't have it granted, we're just raising the genuine voice against the pain that RouteGuru hasn't been patronized anywhere despite the fact the Google has admired us for this innovative solution and learnt from us as well.

Agreed that "landmark intelligence" as a concept has been known for thousand years but still couldn't be demonstrated technologically till RouteGuru team did it in 2007. Can we figure out the reason?

Can't there be something novel in solving this problem which makes the solution (or perhaps the process) innovative? If it looks like a small feature to you it's your choice.

Adobe holds the patent for Menu based navigation for UIs. That also is just a small feature on a web page. Why does it make sense?

And many a times it's not the concept or technology but the regional strength that's worth taking the biggies head on. Have you ever heard about "Baidu" in China?

Google has still not been able to crack the markets in China/Japan/Korea/Taiwan etc is a big testimony for that.

I urge you to read the post to understand the reason for raising the voice again. The essence is much away from what you have taken it as.

That's a great point. Why didn't RouteGuru raised a voice against Yahoo? Let me explain:

1. Yahoo din't talk to RouteGuru team before the launch. 2. Yahoo also din't come up with any false story either and there team did mention about RouteGuru in one of their Blogs.

I urge you guys to understand the point of disappointment well.

No! it's not a hollow claim.

1. We're talking about the technology invention not the concept and RouteGuru pioneered this technology. Also there's a process in which the landmark intelligence is generated which is legible for a patent as well and RouteGuru has filed one.

2. Why Globally? In many countries, landmark intelligence can fundamentally change the way solutions extend directions today i.e. "Street name based directions", which is a very traditional style.

3. I'll encourage you to read the post again. All we felt sad about was that Google did talk to us, learnt whole lot about Landmark intelligent directions from us and eventually it comes up with a lofty story on how did they figure out the problem, terming it as their own invention and without patronizing RouteGuru at all.

We wouldn't have raised our voice if at all RouteGuru could get a single mention anywhere.