NEWS

Google sued over contextual adverts patent in Russia

Google could find itself in court facing a payout of up to US$3 billion if the latest patent infringement claim against them succeeds.

A Russian company called Era Vodoleya has stated they hold a patent that was awarded in 1998 that covers the methods of providing contextual adverts, where adverts are displayed relevant to the search results on a specific web page. Importantly, this was the year before Google started using contextual ads with any success.

Apparently Era Vodoleya have been investigating Google for the past 5 years regarding the technology. Even though several Russian companies use similar contextual ad systems, they are only going after Google. This they argue is because those other companies have built a solution based on what Google implemented and therefore not on Era’s original patent.

They are not taking Google to court straight away, however. Instead they are trying to contact Google to settle this without further action and will give the search giant until the Spring of next year to agree to discuss it. After that they will turn to the courts to sort out the matter. It is unclear what they are demanding in terms of compensation, but Profy.com believes it is in the region of 15% of Google’s profits, or roughly US$3 billion.

Google Russia has stated they have not received any contact from Era Vodoleya, but did also point out the contact attempts may be directed at Google’s US headquarters and not their Russian operations.

Matthew’s Opinion
These claims made against big companies such as Google always end up asking more questions than answering them. Why have they waited 5 years to take action? Why have they not built a competing search engine using their original patented technology? Why are they not in contact with Google Russia?

Suing Google will get you a lot of press coverage, especially when it is a claim against the technology that forms the base of their advertising revenue. Whether this action is being taken to highlight this Russian company; or is a legitimate claim, we don’t know yet. If they are serious about this then they will take it to court and fight for their patent rights.

I don’t see them having much luck if this does go to court. The fact they have waited so long to react and are only going after Google counts against them in my opinion. Google are sure to have a crack team of lawyers that will either get a court case thrown out, or bury it in years of legal proceedings.

by Matthew Humphries
geek.com