SEATTLE (AP) - A company owned by billionaire Microsoft Corp. co-founder Paul Allen has refiled a patent infringement lawsuit against Facebook, Google Inc. and nine other companies.
Interval Licensing owns patents from technology developed by Allen’s now-defunct research group in the 1990s. Interval says Facebook, Google, Apple, Netflix, Yahoo and others infringe on four patents.
Two claims involve the way websites suggest related content to what’s being shown on-screen, such as movies or news stories the Web surfer might also enjoy.
The other two patents relate to the way computer programs and websites send alerts to the user without disturbing their main activity on the computer, unobtrusively and off to the side.
The original lawsuit was filed in August, but it was dismissed because it didn’t cite specific examples of infringing products.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.