Google, AOL, Yahoo And Microsoft All Sued Over Excessively Broad Auction Patent
from the innovation-at-work dept
In the latest silly patent lawsuit to be filed in Marshall, Texas a company holding a patent on using gaming to determine the final price of an auction system. The company is now claiming that Google, AOL, Yahoo and Microsoft are all violating the patent with their ad auction models. The interesting thing here is that the patent is clearly talking about a very different system. It describes a process of setting a range for a price, and then allowing some sort of game ("a video game, electronic board game, sports bet, card game") to determine what the actual final price is within that range. Of course, that doesn't sound at all like what the various companies listed here are doing. However, that's where whoever drafted the patent earned his or her money. Rather than limiting it to games like those listed, the following phrase was also added: "or any other activity." This is right out of the standard patent attorney's playbook for creating super broad patents -- though it goes against the entire purpose of the patent system. None of the companies involved built their businesses based on this patent. They certainly didn't get the idea for an ad auction based on this patent. Instead, this is just some company taking an overly broad patent and trying to apply it to big, rich companies, in the hopes of scoring some kind of cash settlement. That's not what the patent system is designed to do.
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
Filed Under: business models, patents
Companies: aol, google, microsoft, yahoo
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
2) They win, other defendant has to discontinue action, no money awarded
3) They lose, that's it
4) They lose and the lawsuit was absurd enough that they deserve to be thrown in jail for a great length of time
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Fixing this problem.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Fixing this problem.
I have a different idea.
Just invalidate the patent they brought to trial here, as well as any other patent they own or have any partial ownership of. Then also say that they can no longer file patents for anything.
That should help reduce the amount of BS lawsuits over patents with massive obviousness. Just the biggest threat ever for doing so.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Fixing this problem.
That's not a bad idea. If you exploit the system, you don't get to use it. Just like every other system we have.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Fixing this problem.
Right but the problem is these companies often will buy 'intellectual property' from some other company and then go on a sue campaign. And everyone looses except the lawyers.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Criminal
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
an idea
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: an idea
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: an idea
no really that would be easyer if they took over the world.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
RE #9
Any patent they buy is automatically invalidated.
Would work. =)
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Ummmm...
Well, certainly not originally. But if you call what Congress and the courts and the USPTO have done in the past few years "design" then it IS what was designed. On the other hand, if you call what they've done "incompetent, self-serving, disorganized tinkering", then you're absolutely right.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]