Time to pay up…
Law, The Internet — By Dave on September 9, 2009 7:00 pm
I’ve written in this space before that I am a closet law nerd. I especially enjoy the implications of technology based lawsuits and judgements, and try to keep up with the news as best I can.
Well, TechCrunch brings us the news of a major development in the world of Internet search technology with far reaching implications across what is currently the most hotly contested area for advertising dollars in the world.
A small Israeli company was able to successfully apply for and receive a patent for a specific type of search techology that giants like Google, Yahoo and Microsoft all rely on. More importantly, it looks as though the patent is being backdated to 1998 when the company’s CEO reportedly created the technology, meaning that all of the search companies have been using the technology free of charge for the past twelve years. Expect that to change…
If in fact it is determined that these companies have been using the technology without paying it’s owner for all of these years, expect a massive judgement in favor of Netex Corporation, the Israli company that now holds the patent. Just imagine how many searches have been made on the “big three” search engines since 1998. I don’t know that there is even a word in the English Language to calculate that number. And if a court decides that Netex should be compensated at… oh, I don’t know… 1% of one cent for each of those searches, we could still be talking hundreds of billions of dollars.
I really need to invent something.
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