Lemley suggests Allen is a troll

A company of Paul Allen [Interval Licensing LLC ] sued Apple Inc., Google Inc. and nine other companies on Friday, August 27.
The suit is in WD Washington and the defendants are AOL, Apple, eBay, Facebook, Google, Netflix, Office Depot, OfficeMax, Staples, Yahoo and YouTube.

An online.wsj story included quotes from Mark Lemley:

"It sounds like the classic patent troll case," said Mark Lemley, a Stanford Law School professor who specializes in intellectual property. "Troll" is a term often used to describe holders of patents who use their intellectual property primarily as fodder for filing infringement lawsuits.

Mr. Lemley, who isn't involved in Mr. Allen's suit but has represented Google and Netflix in other cases, said suits filed by holders of years-old patents over technology that's in widespread use can be difficult for a plaintiff to win.

The patents in question are 6,263,507, 6,034,652, 6,788,314 and 6,757,682.


See also
Patent lawsuit du jour: Paul Allen versus the world (but not Microsoft or Amazon)