Microsoft Co-Founder Paul Allen Suing Major Web Companies

Microsoft co-founder, Paul Allen, is suing Apple, and Google, among other tech giants, for patent infringement. Allen is claiming that the 11 companies are using technology for which he owns patents, according to court documents filed in a district court in Seattle on Friday.

The papers were filed by Interval Licensing, Allen's compay. The 11 companies who are accused are: AOL, Apple, eBay, Facebook, Google, Netflix, Office Depot, OfficeMax, Staples, Yahoo, and Google-owned YouTube.

It's not clear exactly what the infringement was, however, there are so many companies involved that it's got to be something big.

Allen said that he owns the patents to four technologies that those companies allegedly are using. It's not stated what that technology is, however, an Interval press release calls them, “key patents [that] are fundamental to … leading e-commerce and search companies.”

Read more about Paul Allen and see what the patents are on the next page.


The four patents that are being asserted by Interval are:

United States Patent No. 6,263,507 issued for an invention entitled "Browser for Use in Navigating a Body of Information, With Particular Application to Browsing Information Represented By Audiovisual Data."

United States Patent No. 6,034,652 issued for an invention entitled "Attention Manager for Occupying the Peripheral Attention of a Person in the Vicinity of a Display Device."

United States Patent No. 6,788,314 issued for an invention entitled "Attention Manager for Occupying the Peripheral Attention of a Person in the Vicinity of a Display Device."

United States Patent No. 6,757,682 issued for an invention entitled "Alerting Users to Items of Current Interest."

"This lawsuit is necessary to protect our investment in innovation," said David Postman, spokesman for Paul Allen. "We are not asserting patents that other companies have filed, nor are we buying patents originally assigned to someone else. These are patents developed by and for Interval."

The technologies were not invented directly by Allen. They were allegedly developed at a lab called Interval Research in the 1990s. This influential software lab was co-founded and financed by Allen.

It was not specified how much Allen is seeking in damages, however, with that many big companies involved, it's pretty certain that he'll get quite a bit of money in damages. With that, he could go on to invest in more companies and perhaps co-found another big company.

You can view the whole press release here.