Paul Allen Sues The World
Well, not exactly. But it sure does seem that way. Last week, his company filed suit against a murderer’s row of innovators and business giants: AOL, Apple, eBay, Facebook, Google, Netflix, Office Depot, OfficeMax, Staples, Yahoo, and YouTube. He claims these companies violated one or more of four patents his company holds.
In the past couple of years we’ve seen companies go the route of nuclear patent war. Apple, Nokia, Google, Oracle and many others have resorted to huge lawsuits. You could say this was probably started by patent troll companies. These are companies who make nothing and sell nothing. They simply purchase patents, and sue anyone they think has violated that patent. Once these large companies started getting hit with this type of lawsuit, they eschewed the mutually assured destruction doctrine for a nuclear holocaust doctrine.
The real problem here is the US Patent Office. They grant some patents willy-nilly, and allow others to languish as an application for years. There needs to be real reform in our patent and intellectual property system. It’s a problem when true innovators are allowed to be sued by those who create nothing.