Patent infringement claims cover suggestions to consumers for items related to what they’re currently viewing on websites and social networks.
According to the WSJ, Microsoft cofounder Paul Allen has taken a shotgun approach to patent litigation, suing a large portion of the technology industry, at least those outside of Seattle.
Named in Mr. Allen’s suit, along with Apple (AAPL) and Google (GOOG), are AOL Inc (AOL)., eBay (EBAY) Inc., Facebook Inc., Netflix Inc., Office Depot Inc., OfficeMax Inc., Staples Inc., Yahoo (YHOO) Inc. and Google’s YouTube subsidiary. Notably missing from the defendants’ list are Microsoft (MSFT), in which Mr. Allen remains a major investor, and Amazon.com (MSFT) Inc., which is based in Mr. Allen’s hometown of Seattle.
The patents in question were developed by Allen’s Vulcan Ventures startup Interval Research a decade ago. Interval amassed a portfolio of over 300 patents before it was shuttered. Now, Interval is just a patent licensing company.
To the laymen (me), the patents seem pretty broad and mundane:
The technology behind one patent allows a site to offer suggestions to consumers for items related to what they’re currently viewing, or related to online activities of others in the case of social networking sites.
A second, among other things, allow readers of a news story to quickly locate stories related to a particular subject. Two others enable ads, stock quotes, news updates or video images to flash on a computer screen, peripherally to a user’s main activity.
No damage amounts are listed by the suit and none of the companies listed would immediately comment.
Patent litigation seems to be becoming a huge business in technology with just about every major technology company wrapped up in major patent lawsuits with its competitors. It was announced just two weeks ago that Oracle was suing Google for patents related to its Java products.
Oracle CEO Larry Ellison and Paul Allen, who is worth north of $13 Billion,have both pledged to give away half their wealth in Billionaire Challenge started by Microsoft’s other co-Founder Bill Gates and Warren Buffet.