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Paul Allen Files Patent Suit Against Apple, Google, Yahoo, Others
mewshi_nya writes "A firm run by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen filed suit alleging 11 technology companies are violating patents developed at a Silicon Valley lab that Allen financed more than a decade ago. Named in the lawsuit: Apple, Google, AOL, eBay, Facebook, Netflix, Office Depot, OfficeMax, Staples, Yahoo and Google's YouTube subsidiary. The suit doesn't name Microsoft, Amazon.com or other tech companies in Seattle where Allen is based, and it doesn't estimate a damage amount. The suit lists violations of four patents (PDF) for technology that appear to be key components of the operations of the companies — and that of e-commerce and Internet search companies in general."
...or do the patent lawsuits that show up on /. seem frivolous to the point of absurdity?
If so, is that sample bias? Or are all patent lawsuits intrinsically ridiculous?
"I'd just like to emphasise that taking a million years isn't a metaphor here..." -Rich Bradshaw
I think this is a great idea. I hope he wins, and internet search and ecommerce are shut down en masse by injunction. Whee! Then we could have a nice look at this business of patents and how we feel about them.
I wonder, is there such a thing as an inverse class action - by which I mean, could a whole raft of internet companies join the defending side as a show of solidarity, claiming that if the current defendants are violating, then they are too?
Does he really need another ivory backscratcher that badly?
I like music
He's sued AOL, Apple, eBay, Facebook, Google, Netflix, Office Depot, OfficeMax, Staples, Yahoo and YouTube (so Google ... again!). For some strange reason he did not sue Microsoft. Here are the two primary super-genius patents representing ideas no one else could have come up with:
Having alerted you users all to these items of interest, I will now proceed to pay Paul Allen.
I read these patents as:
* Patenting text summarization.
* Patenting rating systems.
The idea that either of those is a patentable invention is absurd. Specific algorithms to do either one, sure, but you can't patent general concepts.
No no no, he financed the development of this a little over a decade ago. He filed for these about a decade ago and they were only actually issued about 5 years ago - Now, why he waited 5 years to sue is beyond me, but that seems to be the growing trend nowadays. Wait until the most profitable organizations are using it and then sue them for infringement and make a bit of profit.
Is he trolling? Well, kind of, yes. But its not like he bought up these patents and are now suing anyone he wants, he actually did have invested interest in these and they were actually developed. He's playing favourites of course, he co-founded Microsoft.
I don't think he is trolling anymore than he is just 'playing the game'. I mean how many times have Nokia and Apple gone toe to toe with infringement?
He's not trying to get damages out of them; he's trying to get them to settle by buying "licenses" to make the problem go away. Plus, he's suing companies that HAVE money, while they still do have some assets. If I was trying to get money out of AOL, I'd be in a big hurry too!
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
I have patented suing for patent damages. And I won't license it to him.
Read for yourself:
http://appft1.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PG01&p=1&u=/netahtml/PTO/srchnum.html&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=%2220080270152%22.PGNR.&OS=DN/20080270152&RS=DN/20080270152
This space for rent.
TL;DR summing up
But the first patent '507 seems to be for "browsing audiovisual data" or a web browser
Patent '652 and '314 are patents for "Attention Manager for Occupying the Peripheral Attention of a Person in the Vicinity of a Display Device" or Advertisments.
Patent '682 is for "Alerting Users to Items of Current Interest." or Targeted Advertisements.
Yea you legally filed patents
No you can't patent advertising or web browsing
Sorry your claim is BS go back to your bridge you troll.
If Obama and Congress want to stimulate the US (and, really, the whole world) economy, the BEST thing they could do would be to invalidate all copyrights and patents that are more than 10 years old, and abolish ALL "business practice" patents, and ALL software patents.
If I was trying to get money out of AOL, I'd be in a big hurry too!
Me, too!
Mr. Allen, a pioneer of computer software, didn't develop any of the technology himself but owns the patents.
So, he didn't buy them ... and didn't develop them ... so does that make him a bankrolling patent troll?
The 507 patent ()2001) falls to prior art - RoboBoard, bbs that downloaded graphic primitives and let you navigate through a virtual world (never mind just audio-visual data). Also the Space Quest and Kings Quest games, etc.
The 602 and 314 patents "Attention Manager for Occupying the Peripheral Attention of a Person in the Vicinity of a Display Device." is preceded by, among other things, those annoying tickertape displays that have been around for decades, wall clocks for anyone sitting in front of a computer at 4:55 PM, etc.
The 682 patent "Alerting Users to Items of Current Interest." (2004) is anticipated by the flag on your mailbox that lets you know you have mail, your doorbell, TV Guide magazine, the front page of any newspaper sitting at the news stand, etc. And of course, "You have mail".
Maybe this will the the one that finally puts the end to stupid software patents.
Having licensed a few of my own patents to big companies, it's very likely he's been in negotiations for 3-4 years and they finally broke down. It's not at all uncommon to take 2-3 years to negotiate a license agreement, and that usually only starts after the patent is actually issued AND the potential licensee has had 6-12 months to read and fully comprehend the issued patent.
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
El Jobso
His Steveness
Thanks for making your trolling so obvious you do Slashdot a service by making it so easy to ignore anything you have to say so we can spend time on more serious posts.
Adding "On the Internet" or "In a web browser" is not innovation.
Well, none of these are actual inventions, so I'm not sure why patents were issued, but even beyond that, if you were to allow the patenting of "ideas", Interval Research Corporation didn't originate these ideas...
Interval Research Corporation was founded in 1992. NCSA's Mosaic browser was invented in 1992 with the first public release in 1993. Most modern browsers owe their foundations to NCSA not Interval Research Corporation. NCSA also had the first web sites to host bodies of audiovisual information as well. So this claim seems to be unfounded.
The second and third claims are even more ludicrous. There have been "attention managers" that display alerts on video displays for as long as there have been video displays. I was programming them before Al Gore invented the internet and I was programming them on the internet before Interval Research Corporation was a gleam in Allen's eye...
Nothing to say about the 4th patent...
He owns Ticketmaster; doesn't get much more evil than that...
I have patented suing for patent damages. And I won't license it to him.
Read for yourself:
http://appft1.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PG01&p=1&u=/netahtml/PTO/srchnum.html&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=%2220080270152%22.PGNR.&OS=DN/20080270152&RS=DN/20080270152
You claim you've "patented" this, but it clearly is merely the publication of a patent application, and in fact, has not been granted. Accordingly, by claiming you have "patented" it, you are in violation of 35 USC 292 which makes "false marking" illegal, and levies a charge of up to $500 for every such offense.
I leave a settlement offer to you. A donation to Slashdot would certainly be appropriate. Cheers.
Disclaimer: I am a patent agent. I am not your patent agent. Nothing in this post should be considered legal advice, nor should be relied on. This is merely for the purposes of [my] amusement.
This is amusing. Here's some history on the company. Interval Research was an R&D outfit that Paul Allen founded back in the 1990's. You've never heard of it, because they were incredibly secretive. So hush-hush that when they went belly-up no one outside of the company knew about it. Literally. It took months before the Press finally got wind of it.
The place was a great place to be if you were doing research. Literally "let a thousand roses bloom". Unfortunately, they were horribly mismanaged. Allen blew hundreds of millions of dollars, mostly over budget, before he finally realized that he wasn't getting anything out it. They wanted to be the next version of SRI. Unfortunately, that didn't turn out.
Top management was, at best, incompetent. At worse, downright crooks. They hired some people on certain terms, and then shortly afterwards said "Opps - we really meant to hire you at a lower level". Truly a boneheaded move. Fortunately it didn't happen to me, but the look on people's faces when they found out was unforgettable.
Interval did some really amazing stuff; years ahead of its time. But they could never get the products out to market (though they tried), mostly due to amazing incompetence on the part of the lead engineers. You know the type. Big egos and no talent. Perhaps there was an exception to that rule, but I don't recall it.
I'm not surprised that Paul Allen has turned into a Patent Troll; it will be the only way he can get his money back. The only thing surprising is that it took him so long. But he never impressed me as being the sharpest knife in the drawer. As for other history, they had a number of big names there, from many fields. In tech, you may have heard of Lee Felsenstein if you're familiar with history. Their office was in the Research area of Palo Alto. Near Stanford, down the street from the Wall Street Journal, between Page Mill and Hillview
Despite that unfortunate ending, I still look back fondly on Interval. They paid well, too. I made lots of money off of Paul Allen. Thanks, Paul!
The guy is 57 and has $13.5 billion dollars according to Wikipedia.
So he has more money than he could reasonably spend and has 20 years tops before his body really starts to fail him. Actually probably much less than that since it was announced in 2009 that he has been diagnosed with cancer again.
He could do literally anything with his remaining time and resources and he has decided to spend it acting as a parasite, exploiting weak spots and loopholes in the law to do damage to society in the hopes of getting an extra billion before he drops dead. I guess his dick stopped working so this is the only way he can continue to fuck people.
I wonder if it's the personality type that is more likely to become a billionaire, or if it's the act of spending a big chunk of your life accumulating wealth that causes these people to turn into mindless, selfish, pointless money collecting machines.