Hung Jury Gives Both Sides Cheer In Yahoo Patent Claim
from the we-are-the-champions dept
Sometimes court battles muddy an issue more than clarifying it. The case in question is Yahoo's suit against FindWhat, which uses an auction-based method for selling ads in search results. Yahoo claims the patent on this technology, and hasn't been afraid to wield it. Last year Yahoo extracted roughly $300 million worth of stock from Google with said patent. The claim against FindWhat went to trial, and has now ended in a hung jury. It seems that the jury felt some of the claims were valid, some weren't, and some it couldn't decide on. How's that for clarity? The result is a mistrial with both Yahoo and FindWhat claiming victory. Stay tuned for a post-trial hearing in June.
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
