Microsoft co-founder sues, well, everyone but Microsoft
Whatever your views on Windows, it’s fair to say Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen deserves major credit for helping build the home and business computing market. But in a scattergun lawsuit he’s just filed, Allen attempts to take even more credit, to a truly laughable degree.
After leaving Microsoft, Allen founded a company named Interval Research which, over the years, has filed patents on all sorts of ideas. With the four specific patents mentioned in the lawsuit, Allen is claiming Interval invented:
- an “Attention Manager for Occupying the Peripheral Attention of a Person in the Vicinity of a Display Device” (which takes up two separate patents but appears to boil down to “putting stuff on screens”);
- the idea of telling users that if you are interested in the page you are viewing, you might be interested in viewing other similar items;
- oh, and the idea of using a browser to find your way around information, some of which might be in video or audio form rather than plain text.
So, to recap, it’s arguable that all four patents are being breached as you read this page.
So vague and universal are the concepts covered by the patents, you could argue that every company worth suing could be accused of breaching them. That seems to be the argument of Allen’s solicitors: the suit names AOL, Apple, eBay, Facebook, Google, Netflix, Office Depot, Officemax, Staples, Yahoo and Youtube.
Realistically it’s the names that are missing that are more notable. Microsoft’s absence is presumably Allen showing some sort of loyalty, but what about Amazon? Let’s be honest, if you take away the whole “like that, try this” concept, Amazon’s revenues drop significantly.
The real question is why Allen is even bothering. It can’t possibly be the money: Allen is listed by Forbes as being worth 13.5 billion. But what else? Could it possibly be that even one of the world’s richest men has a desire to be recognized for something other than being Bill Gates’ other guy?
Related Posts:
August 31st, 2010
“Allen is listed by Forbes as being worth 13.5 billion.”
Lots of money, but no brains or morals. It’s founders like this that give us such execrable organisations as Microsoft.