Mobile Computing News

Photo: Michael Sprague / Wikimedia Commons

Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen has gone on a feeding frenzy, suing eleven technology companies for alleged patent infringements for patents he’s held since the 90s. The one humorous omission from his lawsuit perp-walk, you ask? Microsoft, of course, the company Allen co-founded and still holds significant equity in.

Interval Research the key

In a move that left the web shocked, confused, bemused, or a combination of all three, Allen sued Apple, Google, Yahoo, Facebook, YouTube, eBay, AOL, Netflix, Office Depot, OfficeMax and Staples for four patent infringements covering – get this – ‘fundamental web technologies’. The patents were granted – and developed – by Interval Research – a research company Paul Allen owned in the 90s. The firm reportedly employed over 110 of the world’s brightest physicists, scientists and engineers who were designing the next wave of science and technology.

When not putting these smart people hard at work, Allen’s Interval Research supposedly funded external projects, including one by a pair of gentlemen named Lawrence Page and Sergey Brin, the founders of Google.

‘C’mon, dawg! Be serious!’ – everybody

Naturally a few of the accused organisations have come out of the woodworks to defend themselves already, with the rest likely to follow suit soon. Facebook, one of the highest profile companies in the suit, issued the classic ‘We believe this suit is completely without merit and we will fight it vigorously’.

The web has also reacted, with various commentators wondering when Paul Allen became a patent troll. An unknown commenter put it best, when he/she said ‘Allen may as well sue the whole Internet this suit is so broad.’ And for broad stakes, this patent infringement suit does, indeed, take top honours.

So much for your good grace

Allen left Microsoft over two decades ago due to health concerns, and since then has gone on to not only recover, but thrive in other business areas including cable television, sports team ownership and the like. Leaving for reasons of illness, he got to get out the game with the kind of halo people on their deathbeds are often permitted, but this suit proves he is fit and fighting and surprisingly vicious, too.

As for his friends at Microsoft? Yeah, they’re doing okay. They have this little product called Windows 7 that’s doing gangbuster numbers.

Does Paul Allen Interval Research have a case here? And, seriously, can we ignore the fact that Microsoft’s name is miraculously omitted from this list? Surely not.