A litany of lawsuits

(For a longer list, see the wiki page List of lawsuits)

This page presents two lists: headline-making settlements over software patents, and lawsuits initiated over software patents. There are two points to note regarding these lists:

• No patent lawsuit requires proving that the defendant copied the work of the plaintiff, and in almost all of the cases here, there is no evidence that direct copying of any kind occurred.

• There is no comprehensive list of suits or settlements. For every suit here, there are countless others.

Patent-holder	Defendant	Claimed technology
Sun	Trilogy	“data-processing patents”
Autobytel	Insweb	Real-time communication of purchase requests
Klausner	Comcast, Cablevision Systems and eBay’s Skype	selective retrieval of voicemail
Hyperphrase	Google	parsing
Global Patent Holdings	Boca Resort, Green Bay Packers, Ed Napleton Acura, Orbitz, Peapod, OfficeMax, Caterpillar, Kraft Foods, CDW Corp., Motorola, ADT Security Services, AutoNation, Florida Crystals Corp., HearUSA, MovieTickets.com, Ocwen Financial Corp., and Tire Kingdom	Images on web sites
Eon-Net	Burlington Coat Factory, J Crew, Walgreen, Jos. A. Bank Clothiers, Delta Air, Staples, Barnes and Noble, Hammacher Schlemmer, D’Agostino Supermarkets, Foot Locker, Liz Claiborne, and Linens ‘n’ Things	collecting information via Internet
Plutus	Continental, Toyota, DaimlerChrysler and Mercedes	language processing
Card Activation	McDonald’s, Sears, Walgreen, Barnes & Noble, Aeropostale and OfficeMax	Gift cards
Antor media	Dole Food Company, Touch Tunes Music, Inc. Wal-Mart Stores, Circuit City Stores, Alltel Corporation, Gannett Co, McGraw-Hill Companies, Ford Motor, E I du Pont de Nemours and Company, Cisco Systems Inc, and Xerox	transmitting data
Antor media	Metacafe, Digital Playground, Google, GoTuit Media, Grouper Networks, MacMillan Publishers, MLB Advanced Media, LP, New Frontier Media, PureVideo Networks, SBO Pictures, Sony BMG Music Entertainment, Sony Computer Entertainment America, Sony Corporation of America, Sony Electronics, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Sun Microsystems, Vivid Entertainment, YouTube, Discovery Communications	transmitting data
Implicit Networks	AMD, Intel, NVIDIA, Raza, RealNetworks, and Sun	sorting data packets
Beneficial Innovations	Blockdot, CareerBuilder, Cnet Networks, Digg, Ebaum’s World, Jabez Networks, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Weather Channel, The Washington Post, Newsweek Interactive, AOL, The Dallas Morning News, Google, IGN Entertainment, Morris Communications, Tribune Interactive, Yahoo!, and YouTube	online games

Here is a sampling of older suits that have already settled. Since Microsoft is perceived as the deepest pockets in the traditional software industry, it is frequently the target for software infringement suits—its 10Q lists the company as currently defending against 45 infringment suits.

Patent-holder	Defendant	Claimed technology	Settlement
NTP	RIM	the Blackberry email system	$612.5 million
Acacia	Various (as of Feb. ’08)	Various	$106.6 million
Creative	Apple	iPod user interface	$100 million
Sprint-Nextel	Vonage	VoIP	$80 million
Verizon	Vonage	VoIP	“at least” $80 million, up to $117m
Intertrust	Microsoft	software security	$440 million
SPX	Microsoft	virtual whiteboard	$60 million
Burst	Microsoft	data transmission	$60 million
z4	Microsoft, Autodesk	software registration	$133 million
Akamai	Limelight	web server organization	$45.5 million
Alcatel-Lucent	Microsoft	user interface	$367 million
Total			$2.082 billion