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Lycos Patent Lawsuit Threatens Use of Suggestive Search

By David Kaplan - Mon 15 Jan 2007 02:51 PM PST

Another patent saga begins ... Lycos is suing TiVo, Netflix and Blockbuster over the way those companies provide recommendations to customers for movies or television shows, Bloomberg reports. Lycos owns two patents it says covers “information filtering technology” and claims the three companies are using that technology without permission. Lycos filed suit Jan. 3 in federal court in Alexandria, Va., seeking royalties and a court order to stop the companies from their alleged infringement of the patents.
Blogger Davis Freeberg (via Yahoo News) identifies the patents in question as 6775664 (for a search method that uses a user feedback system) and 6308175 (covers technology whose “filter system compares information received to an individual user’s query profile data) as the most likely candidates. Lycos is seeking royalties and a court order that would stop the three companies from infringing the patents. If Lycos wins, it could have a chilling effect on the tech industry and the use of suggestive search, Freeberg contends: “In the case of TiVo, it’s a unique feature that other DVR providers can’t offer, but in the case of Blockbuster and Netflix, their use of suggestions can save them millions of dollars by recommending movies that utilize low cost archive content over the top new releases.”

Posted in: Legal, Patents, Technologies/Formats, Search


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1 Response:
  • From Michelle Shipman Thu 05 Jul 2007 03:08 PM

    In repsonse to Lyco’s being sue happy why dont they look into and take car of their own inside problems such as this ongoing incident for mor than a year of unauthorized internet fruad.
    In April 2006 I selected to make my Lycos site commerical free for $11.95 a month I would recieve certain services. By July I noticed I still had not received the services I had paid for. Still had my free interent name and commericals. I tried contacting them with the phone number on my account stament from WoodForest bank and the number was no good. I then talked with a gentleman at my bank and he stopped anymore payments from coming through from Lycos. Payments still came through and Lycos had no number to call to get through and was not responding to my emails either I went on lycos and cancelled on their site as well. In February of 2007 i even got a new debit card and destroyed the old one. Lycos is still billing me $11.95. How did they get my new card information? I, nor did anyone else in my household use it on their site. Point is they are still fraudently billing me without my authorization and I want paid back. the amount above is for 15 months plus a 30 overdraft fee they cause as a result of taking authorized payments. This shouldn’t be allowed to happen. My bank is currently waiting a pending transaction coming through from Lycos that too is an unauthorized transaction on a card they have no access to. My bank said as soon as it post they can begin an investigation into it. This too will incur a $30 fee each and every day until this matter is resolved. Leaving me to close out my account change everything once again and getting a new card because Lycos is stealing $11.95 out of my account.

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