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Interval Licensing Saga Continues

Interval Licensing is back in the game with yesterday’s filing of an amended complaint (see below).

As noted in previous posts, Interval Licensing–formed in 1992 by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen and computer scientist David Liddle–initially filed a patent infringement lawsuit naming 11 defendant companies (AOL, Apple, eBay, Google, Netflix, Office Depot, OfficeMax, Staples, Yahoo!,YouTube, and Facebook).  However, the law suit was later dismissed because it was deemed to not be specific enough as to the allegations of infringement.  The amended complaint appears to remedy this.

Of particular interest in this 35-page document are the specifics as to how each of the defendant companies allegedly infringes on patents 6,263,507 and 6,757,682.

In essence, Interval  Licencsing argues that the claims broadly cover the notiion of discovering related content and displaying it.  So, for example, when an eBay user selects an item of interest, a related item that may be of interest to the user is displayed. Amazon does this famously as well when the user puts an item in their online shopping cart (“Customers who bought this item also bought….”).

Interestingly, the allegation against Facebook is that it displays a related photo when the user selects a photo. This is somewhat different, and shows the length that Interval intends to go toward enforcement.  However, it appears to be a bit of a stretch because there is little support in the written description of the allegedly infringed patents for displaying related photos.  The complaint also notes that when a Facebook profile is displayed, a similar profile is  displayed.  But this also seems to be a stretch.

Finally, it is noteworthy that the amended complaint  formally requests a jury trial.

Would a jury trial be beneficial to the plaintiff?

Maybe not if the plaintiff was seen as a troll… but perhaps it would if  the plaintiff was viewed as an underdog… a billionaire underdog at that.

2010-12-28 Interval First Amended Complaint for Patent Infringement