∞ Microsoft co-founder sues Apple, Google, Facebook, others

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Microsoft co-founder, Paul Allen, is taking on Silicon Valley in a patent lawsuit filed last week.

The lawsuit targets many of today’s best known technology companies including Google, Facebook, eBay, Apple, Yahoo, AOL, Netflix, Office Depot, OfficeMax, Staples and YouTube, which is owned by Google, according to the Wall Street Journal.

The patents Allen is suing over describe tasks like allowing “a site to offer suggestions to consumers for items related to what they’re currently viewing.” Another one describes a technology that “enables ads, stock quotes, news updates or video images to flash on a computer screen, peripherally to a user’s main activity.”

A third patent describes a process that “allows readers of a news story to quickly locate stories related to a particular subject, among other things.”

Allen received the patents while funding Interval Research Corp. during the Internet heyday about a decade ago. Allen sunk $100 million into the company before closing the doors.

It is interesting to note that Microsoft was not named in the lawsuit.


  • Daniel Swanson

    Is this guy worried about funding his retirement or the value of MS stock? This is totally bogus.

  • observer

    “It is interesting to note that Microsoft was not named in the lawsuit.”

    True, but maybe MS is already licensed to do so.

    • Jim Dalrymple

      Good point.

  • Jojo

    Allen has made so many bad investments in his life time that it seems that the only way to make any money is to become a patent troll.

    Unfortunately, I have a software background and I find it extremely difficult to provide a patent for something others have been doing long before the Mac or Windows ever existed. The big difference being the more sophisticated look and feel. The courts are going to have to take a very thorough look at some of these patents because they just do not make sense.

  • Carlo

    Funniest of all is the last line:

    “Please take a minute to Tweet, Like, or Share this post with your friends.”

    Don’t mind if I do….