The Wall Street Journal reports that Paul Allen, who co-founded Microsoft and left the company over 20 years ago, is now suing Apple, Google, and nine other companies by claiming they are illegally using the technology that was created in the Valley. What’s more? Allen did not create or pioneer any of this technology but he owns the patents.
This is just the latest in ongoing “Patent Wars” that have practically taken over the tech world: Apple sued several mobile handset companies over iPhone patents they owned, Microsoft was sued by i4i–and gave them a run for their money–over XML patents, and countless other incidents.
“Paul thinks this is important, not just to him but to the researchers at Interval who created this technology,” said the spokesman, David Postman. “We recognize that innovation has a value, and patents are the way to protect that.”
Funnily enough, many would argue that patents actually impair innovation, an opinion wildly endorsed by the Zunited Podcast.
Apart from Apple and Google, the suit includes “AOL Inc., eBay Inc., Facebook Inc., Netflix Inc., Office Depot Inc., OfficeMax Inc., Staples Inc., Yahoo Inc. and Google’s YouTube subsidiary.”
The spokesperson begs that the suit has nothing to do with Allen’s current finances (who is a major investor in Microsoft, conveniently absent from this suit) and that companies are actually making money from patents… licensing them, anyway. Allen’s team has been reviewing his patents “for years.”
