Microsoft co-founder relaunches suit against Apple, others

Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen’s company Interval Research Corp. has filed an expanded version of its lawsuit against Apple, Google, AOL, eBay, Facebook, Netflix, Office Depot, OfficeMax, Staples, Yahoo, and Google’s YouTube subsidiary, providing more details in its attempt to prove patent infringement. Originally filed in August, the suit was dismissed by a federal judge in Seattle earlier this month for being too vague. The patents in question cover automatic suggestions for shopping sites, automatic location of related stories on a news site, and the presentation of information such as ads, stock quotes, news updates, or videos on a computer screen, in the periphery of the user’s main activity. The amended complaint includes more details of how the companies supposedly infringed, along with 40 exhibits, which according to the Seattle Times are largely screenshots of websites and services with specific areas highlighted. The exhibit submitted to illustrate Apple’s violations includes the top portion of an iTunes Store album listing, including the track listing and preview buttons, the buy button, a top songs and albums section for the artist, and recommendations based on what listeners of that album have purchased.