Microsoft Co-Founder Sues Google, Yahoo!, Facebook, Apple...

The US Software patent madness has started yet another legal circus. Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen's firm, Interval Licensing, has filed a lawsuit against 11 companies for violations of several software patents. The companies include AOL, Apple, eBay, Facebook, Google, Netflix, Office Depot, OfficeMax, Staples, Yahoo and YouTube.

Interestingly, the lawsuit has not included Microsoft and Amazon in this list of violators. Well, Allen has made billions through Microsoft shares. Amazon reportedly had ties with Allen's firm as the company headquarters is located in the building owned by Allen. It reminds me of George Orwell's Animal Farm, "All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others."

The lawsuit seems to be targeting Google specifically. The body of the complaint makes special mention of Google -- "Interval Research served as an outside collaborator to and provided research funding for Sergey Brin and Lawrence Page’s research that resulted in Google. Indeed, a Google screenshot dated September 27, 1998 entitled “About Google!” identifies Interval Research in the “Credits” section as one of two “Outside Collaborators” and one of four sources of “Research Funding” for Google."
 
It further goes on stating," Mr. Brin and Mr. Page also recognized Interval Research’s funding in the “Acknowledgements” section of their 1998 research article entitled “Anatomy of a Large-Scale Hypertextual Web Search Engine” in which they “present Google.”
 
I am not a legal expert, can someone explain how this relates to the patents?
 
Four patents which are 'used' for these lawsuits include.
 
On July 17, 2001, United States Patent No. 6,263,507 (“the ’507 patent”) was duly and legally issued for an invention entitled “Browser for Use in Navigating a Body of Information, With Particular Application to Browsing Information Represented By Audiovisual Data.” Interval was assigned the ’507 patent and continues to hold all rights and interest in the ’507 patent.
 
Allen's firm says that defendants have infringed and continue to infringe one or more claims of the ’507 patent. AOL is liable for infringing the ’507 patent under 35 U.S.C. § 271 by making and using websites, hardware, and software to categorize, compare, and display segments of a body of information as claimed in the patent.

On March 7, 2000, United States Patent No. 6,034,652 (“the ’652 patent”) was duly and legally issued for an invention entitled “Attention Manager for Occupying the Peripheral Attention of a Person in the Vicinity of a Display Device.” Interval was assigned the ’652 patent and continues to hold all rights and interest in the ’652 patent.

Allen's firm says that defendants have infringed and continue to infringe one or more claims of the  ’652 patent. AOL is liable for infringing the ’652 patent under 35 U.S.C. § 271 by making, using, offering, providing, and encouraging customers to use products that display information in a way that occupies the peripheral attention of the user as claimed in the patent.

On September 7, 2004, United States Patent No. 6,788,314 (“the ’314 patent”) was duly and legally issued for an invention entitled “Attention Manager for Occupying the Peripheral Attention of a Person in the Vicinity of a Display Device.” Interval was assigned the ’314 patent and continues to hold all rights and interest in the ’314 patent.

Allen's firm says that defendants are liable for infringing the ’314 patent under 35 U.S.C. § 271 by making, using, offering, providing, and encouraging customers to use products that display information in a way that occupies the peripheral attention of the user as claimed in the patent.

On June 29, 2004, United States Patent No. 6,757,682 (“the ’682 patent”) was duly and legally issued for an invention entitled “Alerting Users to Items of Current Interest.” Interval was assigned the ’682 patent and continues to hold all rights and interest in the ’682 patent.

Allen's firm says that defendants have infringed and continue to infringe one or more claims of the ’682 patent. AOL is liable for infringing the ’682 patent under 35 U.S.C. § 271 by making and using websites and associated hardware and software to provide alerts that information is of current interest to a user as claimed in the patent.

These patents were granted by the US patent office. This lawsuit is yet another reminder of the irrelevance of software patents.
 
Freedom advocates have been calling to abolish this evil called Software Patents from the US system. 
 
Richard M Stallman, the father of the Free Software Movement, wrote "Software patents are a vicious and absurd system that puts all software developers in danger of being sued by companies they have never heard of, as well as by all the megacorporations in the field. Large programs typically combine thousands of ideas, so it is no surprise if they implement ideas covered by hundreds of patents. Megacorporations collect thousands of patents, and use those patents to bully smaller developers. Patents already obstruct free software development.
 
The only way to make software development safe is to abolish software patents, and we aim to achieve this some day. But we cannot do this through a software license. Any program, free or not, can be killed by a software patent in the hands of an unrelated party, and the program's license cannot prevent that. Only court decisions or changes in patent law can make software development safe from patents."
 
Isn't it high time for US to recognize the absurdity of software patents and end it? Will the US abolish this evil and become part of the human race which thrives on sharing knowledge?