From what little legal knowledge I have, I think you don't go looking at your own patents that way, because then you are knowingly infringing, which means you would pay more damages.
It's simpler: they just want to shake Google down for some cash.
It's simpler: they just want to shake Google down for some cash.
a) "Invent" X.
b) Can we patent it?
c) Opps. We read on someone's patent.
d) Risk assessment: Will any one notice?; EV(X) > cost of future lawsuit?; EV(X) > cost of (cross)licensing? etc. etc
e) Either make X or forget X
f) (Optionally, but for bonus MegaCorp points.) Try to patent X regardless.
Edit: I guess there's a reason the only things I've ever seen in writing from a patent lawyer is a) an invoice, and b) a patent application.
Imagine someone sues you for spilling coffee on them. They are willing to settle if you cut your hand off. You disagree, go to court, and the court awards the plaintiff twenty bucks. Same thing happens in the corporate world, too.
Honestly, Oracle's patents should be easy to find prior art for. Nothing in computer science is new, even if a patent examiner or some dude working 9-5 at Sun say they are.
BigTable is using GFS, so it will not be much use to Oracle without GFS. Also, since Google nicely described some of the major ideas behind BigTable in a paper, there are few Open-Source implementations of it. I expect that like many database systems - getting a license is easier than building and maintaining a stable system :)
Claims on slides and videos don't cut it for me anymore (I used to be borderline fanboy of Google's tech reports, like so many others.) Stonebraker has a great paper analyzing Google's claims with respect to databases (and it doesn't look so revolutionary.) That's why I'd be surprised if Oracle buys Google's hype just like that.