News: Microsoft co founder sues Facebook and Apple amongst others

Facebook, Apple, Google and eBay form part of a group of 11 companies that have been named in a lawsuit filed on Friday on behalf of Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen.

According to the Wall Street Journal, the 57 year old Allen is accusing these companies of making use of technology developed a decade ago in his now-defunct Silicon Valley laboratory Interval Research Corp.

Interval Research Corp was a technology lab in Palo Alto, California that Allen financed with about $100 million during the Internet bubble, but which closed down around ten years ago after amassing about 300 patents.

One of these patents provides suggestions for clients to peruse items related to a product which they are currently viewing or in the case of social networking sites, view items related to online activities of their contacts and others on the site.

Another one enables them to locate related news stories on a similar subject to the one that they are currently reading online.

The suit, filed by Allen’s Interval Licensing LLC, lists violations of four patents for technology and seeks damages of an unspecified amount.

All of the 11 companies are Google, Facebook, eBay, Apple, Yahoo, AOL Inc., Netflix, Office Depot Inc., OfficeMax Inc., Staples Inc. and Google-owned YouTube.

Pic: Microsoft

Microsoft co founder sues Facebook and Apple amongst others

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