wraggster
November 2nd, 2013, 00:03
Nortel went bankrupt in 2009. In 2011, it held an auction for its massive patent portfolio. The winners of the auction (http://yro.slashdot.org/story/11/07/01/1344205/nortel-patents-go-to-apple-microsoft-sony-and-others) were Apple, Microsoft, Sony, RIM, and others, who bought the patents for $4.5 billion as a consortium named Rockstar Bidco (http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise/2012/05/rockstar/). At the time, many people speculated those patents would be used against Google (http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2011/08/google-publicly-accuses-apple-microsoft-oracle-of-patent-bullying/), who bid separately but lost. It turns out they were right. Rockstar has filed eight lawsuits in federal court targeting Google and Android device manufacturers (http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/10/patent-war-goes-nuclear-microsoft-apple-owned-rockstar-sues-google/). 'Thecomplaint (http://ia601006.us.archive.org/18/items/gov.uscourts.txed.148249/gov.uscourts.txed.148249.1.0.pdf) (PDF) against Google involves six patents, all from the same patent "family." They're all titled "associative search engine," and list Richard Skillen and Prescott Livermore as inventors. The patents describe "an advertisement machine which provides advertisements to a user searching for desired information within a data network. The oldest patent in the case is US Patent No. 6,098,065, with a filing date of 1997, one year before Google was founded. The newest patent in the suit was filed in 2007 and granted in 2011. The complaint tries to use the fact that Google bid for the patents as an extra point against the search giant.
http://yro.slashdot.org/story/13/11/01/128258/microsoft-apple-and-others-launch-huge-patent-strike-at-android
http://yro.slashdot.org/story/13/11/01/128258/microsoft-apple-and-others-launch-huge-patent-strike-at-android