Microsoft Co-founder sues Apple, Google, others

[Jagi]

Microsoft Co-founder sues Apple, Google, others

Patent trolling isn’t just for the relevant these days according to the WSJ. Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, who lost $8 billion in the cable industry and now owns the Seahawks and Trailblazers, is suing Apple (and everyone else) over some mundane patents.

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.

The Journal notes that Allen’s Vulcan Ventures conveniently isn’t suing anyone in the local Seatlle area.

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 (AMZN) Inc., which is based in Mr. Allen’s hometown of Seattle.

Patent litigation is on the rise with many high profile cases turning up huge settlements. NTP got $600 million from Blackberry last year, for instance.

Allen, is currently worth $13.5 billion and can be found floating around Puget Sound in some of the world’s costliest yachts.

 

[Heist]

LOL! This dude is going to try to sue the internet over a mothballed patent.

Good luck. Usually is the patent wasn't used, you mothballed it, and then the technology becomes vital commerce they'll rule in your favor but no award.

 

[Jagi]

Judge dismisses Allen’s Apple patent violation lawsuit

Billionaire Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen’s patent trolling lawsuit filed against Apple, Facebook, Google, YouTube and others has been dismissed by the courts.

“Plaintiff has failed to identify the infringing products or devices with any specificity,” wrote U.S. District Court Judge Marsha Pechman in her order to dismiss. “The Court and Defendants are left to guess what devices infringe on the four patents.

Allen was claiming that the companies had violated four patents developed by Internal Research (a research firm he funded).

The two main patents were:

6,263,507, “Browser for Use in Navigating a Body of Information, With Particular Application to Browsing Information Represented By Audiovisual Data”

6,757,682, “Alerting Users to Items of Current Interest.”

Allen’s lawsuit had failed to make proper identification of instances of infringement. He has until December 28 to file an amended complaint.

 

[Black Mamba Jamba]

 

[followup]

damn....his teeth

 

[BorderLord]

You can copyright a product but not the idea of the product.

The product's implementation can be copyrighted only.

For example, I could build a car but I can't build a Ford Mustang.

 

[veritech]

damn....his teeth

right. brush your frackin teeth man.

i bet his breath smells terrible.

 

[dasmybikepunk]

THIS MOFO DAMN NEAR WORTH 14 BILLION!

PROBABLY HAS EVERYTHING A MAN COULD WANT IN LIFE.

..BUT HIS TEETH

 

[sharkbait28]

This dude is a billionaire and yet his teeth look like a gremlin's. Wtf?

And lol @ this ultra rich motherfucker patent trolling on the off chance he can stack a couple more chips.

 

[malaki]

PROBABLY HAS EVERYTHING A MAN COULD WANT IN LIFE.

you can't buy game.

 

[Heist]

lol! knew he wasn't going to win.

 

[divine]