Eleven major companies including Facebook, Google, Yahoo and Apple have been accused of infringing patents belonging to a company linked to Paul Allen, the co-founder of Microsoft - sparking another debate online about the value of "patents" in cyberspace.
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Interval Licensing says that the companies, also including eBay, AOL, Netflix, Office Depot, OfficeMax, Staples and Google's YouTube subsidiary are infringing the patents, which relate to e-commerce and search. Notably absent from the list of targeted companies are Amazon and Microsoft - though the owner of a patent is not obliged to sue everyone considered to be infringing at once, or at all. Interval is seeking damages and the end of the infringement.
Google, Facebook and eBay said they will fight the accusations by Interval, which owns a portfolio of technology patents but does not manufacture anything. "This lawsuit against some of America's most innovative companies reflects an unfortunate trend of people trying to compete in the courtroom instead of the marketplace," a Google spokesman said in an emailed statement. "Innovation - not litigation - is the way to bring to market the kinds of products and services that benefit millions of people around the world." Facebook spokesman Andrew Noyes said: "We believe this suit is completely without merit and we will fight it vigorously." None of the other companies had a comment on the lawsuit.
The claims, made late on Friday night, have led to accusations by some observers that Allen is acting as a "patent troll" - suing active companies via patents obtained by now-defunct or inactive companies which are not actively developing technology.
However David Postman, a spokesman for Interval spokesman, defended the lawsuit as necessary to protect its investment in innovation."We are not asserting patents that other companies have filed, nor are we buying patents originally assigned to someone else," he said. "These are patents developed by and for Interval."
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Source: The Guardian: Technology Blog
