Google Loon launch event of June 2013. Photo: iLighter/Wikipedia

Google has settled a singular intellectual property case that involves the deployment of balloons in the stratosphere to provide wireless communications on earth.

Space Data Corp. had been scheduled to go to trial next week with Alphabet Inc., Google LLC and subsidiary Loon LLC. But the parties notified U.S. District Judge Beth Labson Freeman of the Northern District of California on July 26 that they'd settled.

An attorney representing Space Data said he would have no comment, and Google did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Space Data had sued Google over what Google had dubbed Project Loon: the idea of deploying a “mesh” of balloons all over the planet from 60,000 to 100,000 feet in the air. The balloons could send and receive communication signals from the ground, in theory making internet communications available anywhere.

Arizona-based Space Data said it patented “stratospheric balloon-based transceivers” many years ago, in large part for its Army and Marine Corps. clients. The company said it held valuable proprietary data about stratospheric wind conditions based on hundreds of thousands of flight hours.

Space Data entered into acquisition discussions with Google in 2007. Sergey Brin and Larry Page were among a team of about a dozen Google executives who toured Space Data's facility. The crew came armed with cameras and took notes, and some confidential data was loaded onto a Space Data Wiki created within Google, according to court papers.

The acquisition didn't go through, ostensibly because Space Data executives leaked news of the discussions prematurely to The Wall Street Journal.

Google then proceeded with Project Loon, saying it had independently developed the idea of using high-altitude balloons for communications. Any “residual” information Google employees may have obtained through unaided observations were specifically carved out of the two companies' nondisclosure agreement, Google noted.

Freeman cleared Space Data's trade secret claims for trial in May, though she stated it was “by an extremely thin margin and drawing all inferences for Space Data.”

“A jury could reasonably infer that Google used the photographs or notes to recall or delineate the trade secrets that were disclosed during the Tour,” Freeman wrote. And Google's records “show that numerous Google employees visited the Wiki.”

She likewise found that a genuine issue of material fact existed as to Space Data's claim for breach of the NDA.

Space Data also had sued for patent infringement, but Freeman found two patents contained indefinite claims, a third was not infringed, and the fourth is under review at the Patent Trial and Appeal Board.

Space Data was represented at the pretrial conference by Hosie Rice's Spencer Hosie, Darrell Atkinson and Francesca Germinario. Appearing for Google were Keker, Van Nest & Peters partners Robert Van Nest, Matthew Werdegar, Eugene Paige, Matthias Kamber and Ryan Wong and associates Leah Pransky, Shayne Henry and Andrew Bruns.