Patent Troll Sues Google, AOL Over Search 'Snippets' and Ad Serving Tech

First time accepted submitter WindyWonka writes "Google and AOL were sued for patent infringement Thursday, accused of violating two former British Telecom patents via Google's search 'snippets' and by Google AdSense and Advertising.com ad serving technology. Incredibly, the lawsuit by apparent patent troll Suffolk Technologies asserts that every Google search result 'snippet' display violates one patent, and that another really broad server patent is violated every time Google and AOL serve up ads."

Re:Funding?

[Anonymous Coward]

Consumers. Thanks to politicians. Thanks to patent lawyers.

Lawyers

[Anonymous Coward]

Someone really needs to find something more constructive for these lawyers to do, like lining the bottom of the oceans.

Re:Funding?

[rtfa-troll]

So yeah, my apache anti-leaching script in the 90s (That substituted a photo of an erect dick whenever an image was leached) was a total patent thievery acomplished via time-travel or something.

Did you publish it? If so, push the link to Google's lawyers (dropping it on an anti-patent site like Groklaw will do, if you don't want to talk directly to Google). Everyone will appreciate that. It might seem stupid, but it can be really hard to find examples of obvious ideas from the distant past.

Re:Funding?

[Vitani]

So it was granted in 2000, and they sat on it for 12 years, let other people use their "invention" and only _then_ do they sue. Maybe patents should be like trademarks(?) - if you don't defend them, you lose them? It's not like they could argue they didn't know Google or AOL existed until now ...