Paul Allen re-files lawsuit against Google, Facebook and Apple

Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen has re-filed a more detailed version of a lawsuit originally filed earlier in 2010, claiming that several high-profile tech firms are guilty of patent infringement – including Google, Facebook and Apple.

Allen's Interval Licensing, the patent arm of Interval Research, filed the revised patent infringement lawsuit against these big-hitting tech giants this week.

The US district court told Allen's lawyers that Interval had until December 28 to refile the lawsuit, which is exactly what they have done.

Patently hopping mad

The new lawsuit includes numerous screengrabs of websites and services that Interval claim shows infringement on its patents.

The lawsuit accuses Apple, Facebook, eBay, Netflix, AOL, Yahoo!, Office Depot, OfficeMax, YouTube and Staples of infringing on four patents held by Interval Licensing that relate to e-commerce and online search functions.

FOSS Patents' analysis of the patent complaint by notes that Google's Android operating system – and its notification system for texts, Google Voice messages, emails and other alerts "to a user of a mobile device in an unobtrusive manner that occupies the peripheral attention of the user" – is directly under fire from Allen's lawsuit.

"If any of those infringement assertions against Android [are] true, this can spell trouble for makers of Android-based devices, and for Android application developers," notes FOSS Patent's Florian Mueller.

"Patent holders can choose to sue Google, device makers, application developers, users, or any combination of the foregoing options."

Expect to hear a lot more on developments in Paul Allen's patent infringement lawsuit against Facebook, Apple, Google, and others as this particular tech patent drama plays itself out in court in the coming weeks.

Via Ars Technica