On Wednesday, Judge Douglas Woodlock ruled that Google Earth did not infringe a patent owned by Skyline Software Systems Inc. In its lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts in Boston, Skyline alleged that Google Inc.’s product, originally developed by Keyhole Inc. and later acquired by Google, infringed its patent (U.S. Patent No. 6,496,189, “Remote landscape display and pilot training”). In his ruling, Judge Woodlock determined that there was no infringement and granted Google’s summary judgment motion, but according to the Yahoo! News Article (link below), “[t]he judge also denied motions from both parties on whether the patents in question were valid, but left the possibility for either party to reassert these issues if they do so before April 20.” According to the SFGate.com article (link below), “Keyhole's 3-D technology powers mapping software that ranks among Google's biggest successes outside of its search engine,” and that “Google said its Earth software has been downloaded more than 100 million times.” Skyline originally sought an injunction and unspecified damages for the alleged infringement.

Yahoo! News Article: LINK
SFGate.com News Article: LINK
Google Earth: LINK
Skyline Software Systems Website: LINK