Interval Licensing LLC, a company owned by billionaire Microsoft Corp. co-founder Paul Allen, has filed an amended lawsuit against Facebook, Google Inc. and nine other companies, claiming they infringed on patented Web technology.
Interval Licensing, based in Seattle, owns the rights to information systems, computer science and communications technology developed in Silicon Valley by Interval Research, which Allen co-founded in the 1990s. Interval Research no longer exists.
The filing is a revision of the lawsuit Interval Licensing filed in August against Facebook, Google, Google’s video site YouTube, AOL Inc., Apple Inc., Yahoo Inc., Netflix Inc., eBay Inc., Office Depot, OfficeMax, and Staples.
U.S. District Judge Marsha Pechman in Seattle dismissed the original suit because it did not name the infringing products.
Interval’s new lawsuit, filed Tuesday in district court in Seattle, is chock full of examples of the four patents in question. Two of the patents are related to the way websites suggest additional, related content to what’s being shown on the screen. Among the many examples cited, Interval said Google and Yahoo’s news sites infringe on these patents by displaying related headlines.
The companies’ search advertising systems and e-mail spam filters also infringe on these patents, Interval said, as do features on Netflix and eBay that recommend related products or products based on a user’s shopping or movie-watching history.
The other two patents are related to the way computer programs and websites send alerts to the user without disturbing their main activity on the computer, unobtrusively and off to the side. Interval says the infringing products include AOL’s instant messaging system, Google’s Gmail notification software and Yahoo’s news widget, among many other items.
Interval is asking for damages and, going forward, either royalties or a ban on the companies’ use of the technology.
Allen founded Microsoft with Bill Gates, a high school friend and fellow computer enthusiast, in 1975. He served as the company’s executive vice president of research and new product development until 1983, when he left to focus on his health. He had been diagnosed with a form of immune system cancer, Hodgkin’s lymphoma, which he beat.
Allen used his Microsoft-related wealth to invest broadly in technology, real estate, sports and the arts. He formed Vulcan Inc. in the mid-1980s to invest in media and communications companies, including America Online, DreamWorks Animation and cable operator Charter Communications Inc. He invested more than $100 million in Interval Research before shuttering the lab.
A longtime sports fan, Allen bought football’s Seattle Seahawks and basketball’s Portland Trailblazers, and he is part owner of the Seattle Sounders FC, a major league soccer team.
Allen built the Experience Music Project, a museum about rock music in Seattle, and has also collected and restored more than 30 vintage airplanes, started a brain science institute and through Vulcan’s real estate arm redeveloped a large swath of downtown Seattle known as the South Lake Union neighborhood.
In 2009, Allen was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma and underwent chemotherapy. Tests in September 2010 showed he was free of cancer.
At last count, Allen’s net worth totaled about $12.7 billion, making him the 17th richest person in the U.S. according to Forbes’ September 2010 tally.
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