Google and Microsoft Put Aside Differences to Tag Team Patent Troll

Posted 03/03/2011 at 10:47am | by Paul Lilly

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Microsoft and Google are joining forces to hunt down what they believe is a patent troll that goes by the name GeoTag. According to a ZDnet report, GeoTag has sued more than 300 businesses for allegedly infringing on a patent related to geotagging technology. Many of these legal targets also happen to be customers of Bing Maps and Google Maps services.

"The suits have placed a cloud on Plaintiffs' web mapping services, have caused customers to seek relief from the Plaintiffs, and have created a justifiable controversy between Plaintiffs and GeoTag," the filing said.

The twin powers have asked the District Court of Delaware to invalidate U.S. Patent 5,930,474, which is for an "internet organizer for accessing geographically and topically based information," and are also seeking a "preliminary and permanent injunction" that would prevent GeoTag from suing any more of their mapping service customers.

"In this case, we are seeing two giants who separate their fierce competition in various fields from a common interest in curbing trollish behaviour," said Florian Mueller, founder of the NoSoftwarePatents campaign.