Xerox Sues Google, Yahoo Over Search Patents

gnosygnus writes "Xerox Corp has sued Google, Inc. and Yahoo, Inc., accusing them of infringing the document management company's patents related to Internet search. In a lawsuit filed last Friday in the US District Court in Delaware, Xerox said Google's Web-based services, such as Google Maps, YouTube and AdSense advertising software, as well as Web tools including Yahoo Shopping, infringe patents granted as far back as 2001. Xerox seeks compensation for past infringement and asked the court to halt the companies from further using the technology."

Comments

Real Goal: Cross-Licensing?

[Shadowhawk]

My guess is that Xerox isn't looking for any big payout, but rather some kind of cross-licensing deal for patents.

Re:Can you say "Patent troll"?

[Sir_Lewk]

And once upon a time SCO was a respectable Unix vendor.

Re:Remember when PARC actually invented stuff?

[raddan]

Yeah, it sounds to me like Xerox is facing increasing irrelevancy, and has decided to turn to litigation as a new revenue stream. I [ugh, sadly] do a lot of purchasing of office equipment, and now that I think of it, I have not even once considered a Xerox product in the last 6 years that I've worked here. I'm not even sure what they're up to anymore.

Re:Remember when PARC actually invented stuff?

[ScrewMaster]

Good times, but how the mighty have fallen these days. I for one miss the idea of a pure research group.

Yeah ... no kidding. Put Bell Laboratories on the short list as well.

Re:Can you say "Patent troll"?

[ircmaxell]

Even at that, more than 2 or 3 years, and I call troll. Either that, or incompetent leadership. Can you say that a negotiation that lasted for presumably as much as 6 to 10 years broke down initiating this suit? Plus, they filed suits against multiple parties. If they did one today, and another in 6 months than your theory would be much more plausible. But as it appears now, I can't see how it can be anything but "troll".

1. "Innovate" an interesting idea, patent it, and do nothing with it
2. Wait for others to independently develop the same idea, and do nothing about it
3. Wait for others' products to launch, and do nothing about it
4. Wait for others' products to gain market penetration, then sue their asses off for infringement
5. Profit

If there's a better definition of a troll, I don't know what it is...

Re:Can you say "Patent troll"?

[Rob Y.]

...They practically invented the GUI.
...and if they'd be able to patent it, we'd still all be running DOS, since Xerox never came out with a GUI product. Such is the power of software patents to drive innovation (into the ground).