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Allegations of patent infringement by Google earned Northeastern University and the company licensing the technology a countersuit from the search advertising company.

Google claimed has not infringed on the technology Northeastern licensed to Jarg, and disputed the validity of the patent in its response to Northeastern's lawsuit.

An IDG News report said the 593 patent dispute could take up to two years to resolve if it goes to a jury trial.

The 593 patent covers how a distributed system handles queries submitted to a search engine. Multiple nodes on a network handle pieces of a query, with results gathered on a home node.

It sounds a lot like how Google's search engine works. Google is not interested in licensing the technology from Jarg. The report said Google's counterclaim contends the Jarg lawsuit has not been filed in a timely manner.

When news of the lawsuit against Google first surfaced in November 2007, Jarg claimed it didn't file a lawsuit earlier because it could not find a law firm willing to take the case on contingency. As we wondered then, we wonder now: why didn't Northeastern back a suit sooner?

It's not like someone would be hard-pressed to find a lawyer in Boston, of all places.