garyp
07-28-2004, 05:31 PM
A very interesting read about the Overture v. Google patent infringement law suit. (http://www.internetnews.com/article.php/3387211)
As Google prepares to go public, this two-year-old patent infringement suit, set to go to trial in San Francisco, calls into question the very basis of Google's advertising business.
Overture, the Yahoo search engine marketing division, began life as GoTo.com, a search service that let advertisers bid for placement at the top of the listings. Advertisers' listings were clearly marked, along with how much they'd paid to be there. In 2001, GoTo.com was awarded U.S. Patent No.6,269,361, (http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=/netahtml/srchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=6,269,361.WKU.&OS=PN/6,269,361&RS=PN/6,269,361) known as the '361 patent.
Overture also is suing FindWhat, a company that started as a search service with paid listings, then morphed into a pay-per-click advertising service that distributes ads through its network -- a lot like Google's AdSense contextual ad program. That patent infringement suit, filed in January 2002, has been tangled in legal maneuvering and isn't due for trial until 2005.
Intellectual property attorneys caution that a patent abstract is just a summary that can't be used to evaluate what the patent really covers. Infringement battles typically are fought word by word, as the litigants argue about the interpretation of a word or phrase.
As Google's IPO approaches, the rivals are waiting for a critical ruling by Judge Jeffrey White of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. His so-called Markman order will define key words in the patent, drawing lines of battle.
"[A] Markman ruling defines the terms in the claim, which in turn define the scope of the invention, how broad or how narrow it is," said Lee Bromberg, an intellectual property attorney with Bromberg & Sunstein. "It's customary for each side to try to pick out certain important terms and to argue for their view of how they ought to be defined," he continued. "It's the judge's job to decide what those terms mean. Sometimes the judge can define a term in a way that either establishes infringement or makes it impossible for infringement."
In this case, the Markman hearing focused on two key terms: "database" and "search result list."
As Google prepares to go public, this two-year-old patent infringement suit, set to go to trial in San Francisco, calls into question the very basis of Google's advertising business.
Overture, the Yahoo search engine marketing division, began life as GoTo.com, a search service that let advertisers bid for placement at the top of the listings. Advertisers' listings were clearly marked, along with how much they'd paid to be there. In 2001, GoTo.com was awarded U.S. Patent No.6,269,361, (http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=/netahtml/srchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=6,269,361.WKU.&OS=PN/6,269,361&RS=PN/6,269,361) known as the '361 patent.
Overture also is suing FindWhat, a company that started as a search service with paid listings, then morphed into a pay-per-click advertising service that distributes ads through its network -- a lot like Google's AdSense contextual ad program. That patent infringement suit, filed in January 2002, has been tangled in legal maneuvering and isn't due for trial until 2005.
Intellectual property attorneys caution that a patent abstract is just a summary that can't be used to evaluate what the patent really covers. Infringement battles typically are fought word by word, as the litigants argue about the interpretation of a word or phrase.
As Google's IPO approaches, the rivals are waiting for a critical ruling by Judge Jeffrey White of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. His so-called Markman order will define key words in the patent, drawing lines of battle.
"[A] Markman ruling defines the terms in the claim, which in turn define the scope of the invention, how broad or how narrow it is," said Lee Bromberg, an intellectual property attorney with Bromberg & Sunstein. "It's customary for each side to try to pick out certain important terms and to argue for their view of how they ought to be defined," he continued. "It's the judge's job to decide what those terms mean. Sometimes the judge can define a term in a way that either establishes infringement or makes it impossible for infringement."
In this case, the Markman hearing focused on two key terms: "database" and "search result list."