Court Issues Judgment Favoring Microsoft in Patent Dispute

Case Filed: Apr 11, 2011

Case Closed: Jul 25, 2013

Judge: Richard G. Andrews

Court: Delaware District Court

Case Summary:

Walker Digital, a Stamford based company creating applications and business solutions filed a suit against Google, Yahoo! and Microsoft for unauthorized use of its intellectual properties. The patent involved in the suit was US7801802, entitled ‘Method, system and computer program product for facilitating an auction behavior and automatic bidding in an auction’ issued on Sep 21, 2010 and expiring[i] by Mar 10, 2020. The patent is assigned to Walker Digital and Jay Walker (founder), also one of the named inventors of the patent in suit.

Walker Digital alleges that the defendants have used the patented technology for advertising and cites each company’s brand of targeted ad services including Ad words ad placement auction, Search advertising service and Advertising ad center as infringing technologies. Complaint sought judgment of infringement, money damages, permanent enjoinment from using their patents and attorneys’ fees and other relief, the Court may deem just and proper. 

In July 2012, stipulation of dismissal as to Yahoo! was filed by the parties and the Court ordered granting the dismissal. In Jul 2013, Google was terminated from the case and two days later, a final verdict was rendered (as a result of stipulation of non-infringement filed) in favor of Microsoft, ordering that the accused products do not infringe the claims asserted in the ‘802 patent. Counterclaims against Walker Digital were dismissed without prejudice. Further details of the verdict are not disclosed.

See 1:11-cv-00311 for more details. To get alerts on cases filed/closed, subscribe to our Litigation Alerts.

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[i] Expected expiration date. Patent Term Estimator is a free web-based tool that automatically calculates patent terms and expiration dates for U.S. utility patents.