Like many people, I have two faces when it comes to lawyers and the law. I’m often frustrated by both but will hire a lawyer and use the law to my advantage if necessary.
That being said, the law was truly meant to be a shield and not a sword. Lawsuits have become a revenue stream in our culture. So when I read Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen was suing amongst others, Apple, Google, Facebook and Yahoo for patent infringement, I rolled my eyes.
It was worse when read this:
…the patents in the lawsuit cover fundamental web technologies first developed at Interval Research in the 1990s, which the company believes are being infringed by major e-commerce and web search companies.
A company conveniently left off the list (which also includes Netflix, Staples, Office Depot, Ebay and AOL)?
Microsoft.
There is no doubt Microsoft sells and uses much of the same technology, so one has to wonder why they were excluded.
Patent lawsuits are nothing new. The problem stems from the patents themselves. Look at one of the patents included in this suit:
No. 6,757,682: Alerting Users to Items of Current Interest.
How can anybody claim to have a patent on such a thing? And exactly what technology did Allen’s firm develop that was infringed upon? The above is not technology. It’s an idea. Can you patent an idea?
It would be like going back in time, filing a patent for “Creating Light From An Artificial Source” and then suing Thomas Edison and General Electric after they started selling the light bulb.
What do you think? Do these lawsuits have any merit? And why do you think Microsoft was not included?
Adam Lehman says
bogus for sure. but where there is money to be had, people will flock.
BenJPickett says
If it is Paul Allen at the front of this, that would be a key point as to why Microsoft isn’t included.
I do think it’s wrong to patent ideas and I think that is the single biggest flaw of our patent system.
However I see this case being dropped before it ever makes it to court. Several times these suits are part of a larger strategy to draw attention to a certain thing, divert a competitors focus or resources (I don’t think this is big enough to warrant much attention from the defendants). The only thing that I can think of is that there are some other things that the firm is trying to draw attention to or away from. And drawing attention away from something is probably the most common practice at the root of this sort of behavior.
Apple recently sued over the idea of gesture technology http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2360838,00.asp and a few other things.
I think it’s a ridiculous what some of these companies get away with as far as filing law suits and patents. It’s not just a couple of them either. Google, Xerox, IBM, Microsoft, Apple, and everyone else I can think of are all guilty of being on both ends, suing over the petty things and infringing on other companies petty patents.