Former Microsoft executive and billionaire Paul Allen sued several major Internet companies and three large retailers for patent infringement today, asserting that four patents originating at Interval Research, Allen’s dot-com era think tank, cover basic web browsing and e-commerce technologies.
The lawsuit [PDF] was filed by Interval Licensing LLC, a patent-holding company owned by Allen, and names eleven companies as defendants: AOL, Apple, eBay, Facebook, Google, Netflix, Office Depot, OfficeMax, Staples, Yahoo, and YouTube.
Interval Research was founded in 1992. It closed its doors in 2000, but the lawsuit is necessary to monetize the investment that Allen made in the organization, said David Postman, a spokesman for Allen.
Uncategorized August 29th 2010