Because Patent Troubles are not limited to video games

Since the year 2004, it seems the video game industry was hit by numerous patent lawsuits. Whenever it is Motiva vs Nintendo, Anascape vs Microsoft, or MicroUnity vs Sony, these lawsuits pop up all over the place. Now it seems Smartphones are the new victim of the Patent Lawsuit-a-thon. Earlier this year, Microsoft Co-Founder Paul Allen sued companies like Apple, Google, Facebook and other companies

A firm owned by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen has filed a lawsuit against Google, Apple, Facebook, and other companies alleging that they have violated patents related to search, multimedia, screen pop-ups and database management.

Interval Licensing filed the patent lawsuit Friday in U.S. District Court of the Western District of Washington. The companies named in the lawsuit are Aol, Apple, eBay, Facebook, Google, Netflix, Office Depot, OfficeMax, Staples, Yahoo and YouTube.

The four patents cover several technologies related to search, multimedia, databases and screen activity, said David Postman, a spokesman for Allen. Details about how the 11 defendants are allegedly infringing Interval's patents will come out as the lawsuit progresses, he said.

A Federal Judge gave Paul Allen till December 28th to amend his lawsuit, providing more details of his claim. That was yesterday, and I bet the amendment didn't pass. Well unfortunately, I was wrong, and it seems the Android Phone is under fire(And I just bought one last week before Christmas)

The amended complaint makes a number of infringement allegations against Google, and those relate to (among other Google offerings) Android. There are two paragraphs that accuse Android. The first one:

44. Defendant Google has infringed and continues to infringe at least claims 4, 8, 11, 15, 16, 17, and 18 of the ’652 patent under 35 U.S.C. § 271 by making, using, selling, distributing, and encouraging customers to use devices containing the Android Operating System and associated software such as Text Messaging, Google Talk, Google Voice, and Calendar. Devices containing the Android Operating System and associated software infringe by displaying information including, e.g., text messages, Google Voice messages, chat messages, and calendar events, to a user of a mobile device in an unobtrusive manner that occupies the peripheral attention of the user. For example, as demonstrated by Exhibit 24, when a user receives a new Google Voice message, the Android Operating System and Google Voice software display a notification in the status bar screen for a short period of time.

The relevant patent is US Patent No. 6,034,652 on an "attention manager for occupying the peripheral attention of a person in the vicinity of a display device".

Paragraph 54 makes an equivalent assertion concerning a related patent:

54. Defendant Google has infringed and continues to infringe at least claims 1, 3, 7, 9, 10, 12, 13, and 15 of the ’314 patent under 35 U.S.C. § 271 by making, using, selling, distributing, and encouraging customers to use devices containing the Android Operating System and associated software such as Text Messaging, Google Talk, Google Voice, and Calendar, and by making and using the hardware and software that operate the Android and Android Market infrastructure. Google’s infringement of the ’314 patent that relates to Android results from substantially the same activities as its infringement of the ’652 patent, described above in [paragraph] 44.


That could be trouble for the Android compared to the iPhone. And while Apple is named in the lawsuit, it doesn't do much for the iOS. Unless Allen decides to do the impossible and do that.

Works Cited:
IT World(August 2010)
FOSS Patents written by Florian Mueller
More info here