The majority of the biggest internet sites are facing a lawsuit filed by Microsoft co-founder, Paul Allen for patent violation. Allen is filing charges against websites Apple, AOL, Google, Facebook, eBay, NetFlix, Office Depot, OfficeMax, Staples, Yahoo and YouTube (a subsidiary of Google).
Paul Allen stressed out that he owns the technology being used by these top companies and therefore he has every right to demand payment from these websites for using such technologies. Mr. Allen filed the motion before a federal court in Seattle and accused internet giants such as Google, Facebook and eBay and eight other companies as well, using a technology that was developed a decade ago by Mr. Allen himself.
The suit mentioned four patents which were developed by Internal Research Corporation, a laboratory and technology incubator which Mr. Allen himself has financed with about $100M, but eventually the said laboratory has closed down about a decade ago. These four patents mostly covered significant parts of how these companies do business.
The suit filed by Mr. Allen doesn’t provide details on how much damages he is claiming against the companies involved. However, Mr. Allen’s spokesman David Postman made a clarification that the filing has nothing to do about Mr. Allen’s health or financial condition. In fact, Mr. Allen is one of the richest people in the world and just recently he has pledged half of his wealth to charity. In addition to that, even if Mr. Allen was diagnosed last year with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma he has managed to complete the treatment necessary for the said disease and has no outstanding issues related to it.
A representative from Google who commented on this issue strongly believes that the lawsuit filed against Google and other companies as well is a desperate act of some people who chose to compete in the courtroom instead of the marketplace. Other websites such as eBay and Facebook are still reviewing the complaints filed against them and are planning to fight it vigorously. Representatives from the other websites refused to give any comment regarding the issue.
How will this case end? Will Paul Allen win this lawsuit against these companies? Is there really a patent violation? And how will these companies defend themselves? These questions are yet to be answered.
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Tags: ebay, facebook, paul allen disease, paul allen lawsuit vs apple, paul allen sues google, paul allen sues internet, staples, Yahoo
How will the suit end? Ideally, with Paul Allen’s festering boil exploding in his own face. Greed is a sin, jackass. Especially when that greed is misplaced and without merit. This fucker needs to go away and go away quickly so that his money can go to charity where it will actually do the world good rather than what this asshole does with it: filter it to attorneys who don’t need the money and who should have better things to do with their time.