Google back in court

Posted December 29, 2007 at 02:41 PM by Chris Marshall

Section: Web, Websites, Google

I am sure you will all remember back in 2006 when Hyperphrase Technologies issued a patent claim against Google. Truth be told it had somehow slipped my mind that they were claiming “that Google’s AdSense and the AutoLink function of its toolbar infringed claims in four Hyperphrase patents relating to the contextual linking and presentation of information”

Well looks like the court has “upheld the parts of the summary judgment relating to AdSense, and some of the claims against AutoLink, but overturned the part of the ruling dealing with AutoLink’s alleged infringement of two of the patents.” I think that what this means is that AdSense is free to go, but AutoLink has another trip to the courts ahead of it. This will be a disappointment as originally the courts cleared Google but the Court of Appeals overturned part of the judgment for “inappropriate interpretation” for “data reference,” “one of the terms used in the patent claims to describe the way a link is made between a fragment of text and an element in a database”, which I am sure we are all the better for knowing!

Via [Macworld]