A tech company which aids the University of California in licensing its innovations, filed lawsuits Wednesday over four patents they believe the three companies-Wal-Mart Stores Inc., Facebook Inc., Walt Dsiney & Co.- are infringing, reports Reuters.
Eolas is a Texas based company known for seeking pay-offs from every possible big corporation over the patents for interactive technology, hypermedia display and interaction issued to the university.
According to the company's website, Eolas was founded by current chairman Michael Doyle in 1994 to help the University of California commercialize patent technology. These including those Doyle and his team helped develop while he worked at the university.
A university spokesman told Reuters that it considered the patents public assets and 'should be paid a fair value when a third party exploits that university asset for profit.'
There is a long list of targets who were sued by the Eolas for alleged infringement which includes Adobe, Amazon.com, Apple, eBay, Frito-Lay, The GoDaddy Group, Google, JPMorgan Chase & Co., Playboy Enterprises International Inc., Staples Inc., Texas Instruments Inc., Yahoo! Inc., and YouTube LLC.
It also shares a history with Microsoft over validity and use of the patented technology, which includes a series of litigation and appeals which stretched for almost eight years, which ended in 2007 with Eolas and Microsoft entering an agreement.
The patenting by the Eolas over the technology concerning hypermedia display and interaction has come under a lot of fire with many urging to invalidate it including World Wide Web inventor, Tim Berners- Lee, who wants the patent to be annulled in order to 'eliminate this major impediment to the operation of the Web.'
A Facebook Inc. spokesperson has responded to the lawsuit saying that the company 'will fight vigorously.'
A Wal-Mart spokesman said the world's largest retailer respects the intellectual property rights of others. "We take these allegations seriously and are looking into the matter."
Walt Disney & Co. statement was awaited.
Incidentally, two of the patents cited in the latest suits were declared invalid in February by a Texas jury in a separate lawsuit which targeted Amazon Inc, Google Inc, Yahoo Inc and others. The circumstances under which Eolas can launch suits over the same invalid patents are not yet clear.
