DOJ Increases Scrutiny Of Google Book Settlement
Jun 10, 2009 at 11:56am ET by Greg Sterling
The Wall Street Journal reports that the US Department of Justice (DOJ) has sent formal requests ("civil investigative demands") to book publishers and Google regarding particulars of their book search settlement deal. That settlement has drawn considerable criticism from various third parties. The article characterized the requests as an "escalation" of the DOJ's probe:
A New York publishing executive said the Justice Department is requesting documents about pricing, digital strategy and conversations with other publishers related to the Google settlement. "The Justice Department is clearly [...]
Filed in: Google: Book Search, Google: Critics, Google: Legal, Legal: Patents
Google Sued For Patent Infringement Over AdSense, Again
Nov 7, 2008 at 8:21am ET by Barry Schwartz
Profy reports that a Russian company is suing Google for $3 billion over Google's contextual ad program, AdSense.
The Russian company, Era Vodoleya, claims they patented contextual ads a year before Google came out with AdSense. The funny thing is this is not the first time Google was sued for patent infringement over AdSense. We reported back in August that Daniel D. Wexler is also suing Google for the same thing. Anyone else want to take shots at Google for AdSense?
Profy suspects that the Russian company is simply looking to "blackmail" Google and settle out of court for a nice f [...]
Filed in: Google: AdSense, Google: Legal, Legal: Patents
Will Software Patents (Including On Search Algorithms ) Go Away?
Jul 22, 2008 at 8:53am ET by Greg Sterling
It's fairly safe to say: 1) patent law is a mess, 2) patent law is in transition, and 3) newer court rulings are reducing the rights of patent holders. But in a very provocative argument, based on recent cases, the PatentlyO law blog argues that new rules and tests imposed by courts (though not yet the US Supreme Court) could effectively eliminate software patents.
The article uses Google PageRank as the example, but the logic would equally apply to all software patents. Here's the critical summary of the new rules:
In a series of cases including In re Nuijten, In re Comiskey and In re Bils [...]
Filed in: Legal: Patents
Google, AOL, Yahoo, & Digg Sued For Playing Online Solitaire
Jan 7, 2008 at 9:47am ET by Barry Schwartz
Digg And Others Sued For Infringing Infamous Computer Solitaire Patent from Techdirt reports Google, Yahoo, AOL, and even Digg were all sued by Sheldon F. Goldberg for patent infringement of US Patent 6,264,560.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation calls Sheldon a wanted person who has crimes against the public domain for threatening small online gaming websites and claiming to own basic online gaming architecture. He has been using these patents to threaten many companies but has now actually filed lawsuits against Google, Yahoo, AOL, and even Digg. The patent covers playing games like solit [...]
Filed in: Google: Legal, Legal: Patents, Yahoo: Legal
US Appeals Court Give Google AdSense Patent Victory But Autolink Still Under Question
Dec 26, 2007 at 3:04pm ET by Barry Schwartz
U.S. appeals court hands Google patent case setback from Reuters reports a US appeals court has partially overturned the initial ruling in Google favor in a patent infringement case filed by Hyperphrase Technologies, LLC.
The court supported the initial ruling that AdSense did not infringe on Hyperphrase patents, but it did not uphold the initial finding that the autolink feature in the Google Toolbar was not a patent infringement. Instead, it sent that portion of the case back to a Wisconsin district court for reexamination.
The official decision can be read in this PDF file.
[...]
Filed in: Google: AdSense, Google: Legal, Google: Toolbar, Legal: Patents
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