The day every search engine got sued

October 4, 2007
by Latitude

Okay, not every engine – I don’t see Ask listed in this lawsuit (PDF), which does name Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, and AOL as defendants. In a week where the Internet Advertising Bureau announced that online ad spend has exceeded £1.3 billion in six months, it’s not too surprising to see shameless opportunists trying to get their hands on some big money from the search engines.

According to Information Week:

Performance Pricing alleges that Google AdWords, AOL Search Marketplace, Microsoft adCenter, and Yahoo Search Marketing all violate its patent, which was filed in 1999 and granted in 2005. The patent describes a system for competitive bidding…The patent claims to cover a wide variety of activities: video games, electronic board games, crossword puzzles or other word games, sports betting, card games, or any other activity or combination of activities.

As Mike Masnick notes:

Of course, that doesn’t sound at all like what the various companies listed here are doing. However, that’s where whoever drafted the patent earned his or her money. Rather than limiting it to games like those listed, the following phrase was also added: “or any other activity.” This is right out of the standard patent attorney’s playbook for creating super broad patents—though it goes against the entire purpose of the patent system.

It is not as if Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, and AOL saw the Performance Pricing patent and thought, “Oh, ad auctions! Why didn’t we think of that?” None of their businesses were based on this patent, nor did the idea of ad auctions come from this patent.

Performance Pricing filed the lawsuit in the Eastern District of Texas, which seems to be sympathetic to disgruntled inventors. It’s no wonder that, as recently as one month ago, Google lawyers were blogging about the urgent need for patent reform in American law. Whether it can come quickly enough to save them from this particular frivolous lawsuit is doubtful.

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