Paul Allen Amends Lawsuit Against Facebook, Apple

itwbennett writes "A Federal judge dismissed Paul Allen's initial patent infringement lawsuit against Apple, Facebook, Google and others earlier this month because it was too vague and gave Allen until Dec. 28 to file an amendment providing more details of his claims. His lawyers responded with a 35-page document filed late Tuesday. The amendment details features of the defendants' websites that are alleged to infringe on the patents and also includes a last-minute amendment that targets Google's Android mobile operating system in a move that could spell trouble for phone manufacturers and app developers."

Comments

Talk about a vague patent...

[Anonymous Coward]

If, as TFA indicates, the same patent can be violated by iTunes and a spam filter, then it seems pretty likely that the patent is trying to assert a claim over an *idea* and not a specific invention. Can you imagine the impact if Henry Ford had been able to patent "thing with wheels on it and a motor"?

Re:Talk about a vague patent...

[kmcarr]

No, he probably would not have. He fought and defeated the Selden patent, which was just this sort of troll patent.

http://inventors.about.com/library/weekly/aacarsseldona.htm

Groklaw

[DCFusor]

Has been covering this one. Allen's Interval has patented things that absolutely everyone has been using for decades, if not longer, and this may just help with the fight against software patents generally, as virtually no one is untouched -- he's only sued less the half the relevant world so far -- big media is a possible target for some of his claims as well. GoodLuckWithThat, they are even feared by lawmakers. Let's hope they go all out so this stupid mess can be ended. Here's the groklaw current link.

Re:Groklaw

[UnknowingFool]

List of parties being sued:

• AOL
• Apple
• eBay
• Facebook
• Google
• Netflix
• Office Depot
• OfficeMax
• Staples
• Yahoo
• YouTube

He's not suing the entire world but he's suing some pretty big players. Players that have the money and wherewithall to see this to the bitter end.

The details of the suit:

• 507: Categorize and correlate information before segmenting and presenting it to a user. Basically any display like Yahoo! News that separates out categories. All parties sued.
• 652: Present information to the user in a non-distracting way from the user's primary interaction. AOL Message pop-ups from the taskbar, Apple widgets, Google gadgets, Yahoo gadgets.
• 314: Present information to the user in a non-distracting way from the user's primary interaction. Similar to 652 but a tad more interactive. Covers all IM and talk clients.
• 682: Indicating to the user that a particular online content is of interest. Covers the "other items that might interest you" feature of many, many websites.

Looking at this patents, all of them are very generic ideas and not anything that should be patentable.

Re:If I had a $1 for every patent troll

[WCMI92]

Patents that don't have a specific invention attached to them should be invalid. Ideas aren't supposed to be patentable, specific inventions are...

What facebook should do

[Anonymous Coward]

is to cancel all accounts from Paul Allen's family and anyone working at his company, and send them an email saying that they are not allowed to have a new account until this patent case is solved.
I'm pretty sure that if this guy has a daughter, and she cannot have a Facebook account, Mark Zuckerberg will be able to hear the screams from his own house.

Re:In this first post I say

[denis-The-menace]

Probably.
Google does not call their language "Java" and with GPL V2, copyright issues are moot
With GPL v3, Patents are moot as well.

Oracle has no case but they must press on or be sued by their own stockholders.