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Xerox sues Yahoo and Google for infringed patents

24 February 2010 09:25 (UTC +04:00)

Baku - APA-Economics. Xerox Corp. alleges in a lawsuit that Yahoo Inc., Google Inc. and Google’s YouTube video site have infringed on the document and services company’s patents on Internet search and e-commerce technology, Wall Street Journal reported.

The suit, filed Friday in U.S. District Court in Wilmington, Del., alleges that Google’s AdSense and AdWords softwareâ€”programs that serve up ads based on Web-site content and users’ search requestsâ€”violate a Xerox patent on automatically generating queries.

The suit also says Yahoo’s Y!Q Contextual Search, Yahoo! Search Marketing and Yahoo! Publisher Network infringe the same patent. Xerox also says applications such as Google Maps and Google Video products such as YouTube.com violate a Xerox patent on "integrating information and knowledge." The lawsuit was reported earlier by InformationWeek.

Xerox has famously missed out on exploiting some notable breakthroughsâ€”including the now-ubiquitous "graphical user interface," the icon-based computer system popularized by Apple Inc.’s Macintoshes and Microsoft Corp.’s Windows software.

Patent suits have become a way of life in the technology business. The U.S. International Trade Commission is investigating a complaint filed by Eastman Kodak Co. earlier this month that alleges Research in Motion Ltd.’s Blackberry device and Apple Inc.’s iPhone infringe Kodak patents on digital cameras. The commission is also investigating a complaint from Motorola Inc. that RIM’s products violate Motorola patents on software, handheld devices and battery packs. The ITC is also refereeing a patent battle between Apple and Nokia Corp.

Companies with large research budgets and long lists of patents such as IBM Corp., Xerox and Kodak make significant revenues and profits by licensing those patents to other companies and defending the patents in court.