Judge dismisses Paul Allen firm's patent lawsuit

n">(Reuters) - A U.S. district judge dismissed a patent infringement lawsuit brought by a company linked to Microsoft Corp co-founder Paul Allen against a cluster of major corporations, saying the complaint failed to identify specific products or devices.

In August, Interval Licensing LLC filed a patent infringement lawsuit against AOL, eBay, Facebook, Netflix, Office Depot, OfficeMax, Staples, Yahoo and Google's YouTube.

In a suit filed in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington, Interval sought damages and a halt to the alleged violations of the four patents it said were fundamental to e-commerce and search.

Judge Marsha Pechman said in a ruling filed on Friday that plaintiff Interval Licensing "has failed to identify the infringing products or devices with any specificity."

Judge Pechman said the court and defendants are left to guess what devices infringe on the four patents and also that the case failed to indicate which of the defendants' products or devices may be at issue.

While dismissing the lawsuit, the court granted Interval Licensing until December 28 to file an amended complaint.

A spokesman for Allen told the Wall Street Journal Interval planned to file an amended complaint soon, calling the judge's order a "procedural issue" that would not halt the case.

"The case is staying on track," the spokesman told the paper.

Interval Licensing could not immediately be reached for comment by Reuters outside regular U.S. business hours.

The case is In re: Interval Licensing LLC vs AOL Inc et al, Case No. 10-1385, U.S. District Court, Western District of Washington (Seattle)

(Reporting by Sakthi Prasad in Bangalore; Editing by David Holmes)

View the original article here

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

View the original article here