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Overture To A Patent War?

Posted by timothy on from the one-two-three-four dept.

Shackleford writes "CNET has an article discussing Yahoo's proposed $1.63 billion buyout of commercial search specialist Overture Services on Monday. Yahoo would acquire 60-plus patents related to technology and processes for indexing the Web, as well as for pay-per-click and bidding systems to grant sites higher placement in search results. The search market is expected to be reap $4 billion in revenue by 2005, according to researchers. As the industry matures, the competition for a piece of that large pie could lead companies to bulk up their IP legal teams, much like in other industries such as online advertising sales during the dot-com bust. And Overture sued FindWhat.com in February 2002 after FindWhat filed a summary judgment request in a New York federal court in an attempt to fend off any potential infringement charge from Overture. Two months later Overture filed a second lawsuit, charging Google with patent infringement in its pay-for-performance ad system. So is this the way the search engine competition will be won? Through patents and lawsuits?"

1 of 174 comments (clear)

  1. Did you know? Altavista by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

    Did you know that Overture owns Altavista?

    Granted they're not where they used to be, but I bet there is quite a bit of expertise (aka. patents) in that portfolio.

    This buyout is much more complex that looks at the surface.