Paul Allen's lawsuit against the world strikes out

FORMER MICROSOFT BLOKE Paul Allen's patent lawsuit against just about every big information technology company has been tossed out of court by a US federal judge in Seattle.

US District Judge Marsha Pechman agreed with Google and AOL and dismissed the complaint for not being specific enough for the defendants to answer for in court. She did, however, dismiss the lawsuit without prejudice, meaning that Allen's lawyers can sharpen their crayons and try again before the court closes on December 28.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Allen plans to get his legal eagles to refile the case soon, calling the judge's order a "procedural issue" that won't halt the case.

Allen sued Google, Youtube, Apple, Facebook, Yahoo, AOL, Ebay, Netflix, OfficeMax and Staples. He claimed that they are all infringing four patents covering technology that were developed at Interval Research. That was a technology incubator Allen had financed but closed down ten years ago.

The lawsuit rests on patent claims to features that Interval Research alleges it invented and are used by many Internet e-commerce and search services.

Google and AOL filed replies to dismiss the complaint because it didn't specify which of the defendants' products and services allegedly infringe the Interval patents or how they did so, and the judge agreed that she could not see anything specific enough about Allen's entirely vague lawsuit to require them to bother defending against either.

No one expects Allen to go away. But he'll have to get his lawyers some sharper crayons now. µ

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Widely used arthritis pill protects against skin cancer, study suggests

77-1978 and 1998-1999 in the Southwestern United States, the incidence of basal cell and squamous cell carcinoma increased by 50 percent and 90 percent respectively in men, and by 22 percent and 110 percent respectively in women. Similar results have been observed in the northern United States.

In addition to the University of Rochester Medical Center, the University of Alabama at Birmingham, the Veteran Affairs Medical Center, Birmingham, the University of Wisconsin, Madison, the University of Michigan, the University of California, Irvine, the Washington University School of Medicine, and the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center participated in the study.

The trial was a cooperative effort of the participating sites, the Division of Cancer Prevention at the National Cancer Institute and Pfizer, the maker of Celebrex (brand name for celecoxib). The study was jointly funded by Pfizer and the National Cancer Institute at the National Institutes of Health.

Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Story Source:

The above story is reprinted (with editorial adaptations by ScienceDaily staff) from materials provided by University of Rochester Medical Center.

Journal Reference:

C. A. Elmets, J. L. Viner, A. P. Pentland, W. Cantrell, H.-Y. Lin, H. Bailey, S. Kang, K. G. Linden, M. Heffernan, M. Duvic, E. Richmond, B. E. Elewski, A. Umar, W. Bell, G. B. Gordon. Chemoprevention of Nonmelanoma Skin Cancer With Celecoxib: A Randomized, Double-Blind, Placebo-Controlled Trial. JNCI Journal of the National Cancer Institute, 2010; DOI: 10.1093/jnci/djq442

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

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