Bloomberg said in a report that a company named Suffolk Technologies LLC filed a lawsuit against Google Inc over the use of the former's Internet-search technology without permission. As Google is getting tired of fielding off purported patent trolls, or entities that enforce patent rights against individuals or companies in the hopes of collecting significant settlements, the search engine company are now raising questions about the plaintiff's true owners in the efforts of winning their cases.
The news agency said that once the true owners of an accuser are revealed during litigation, the lawsuit will either be dismissed or define the main target or purpose of the suit in question.
In the ongoing case of Suffolk against Google, it has been known that the former has ties with Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and BT Group Plc's British Telecom. According to court papers, Corporate Research Partners, the parent of Suffolk, is owned by a 2001 joint venture of Goldman Sachs, General Atlantic Partners and Boston Consulting Group named IPValue. British Telecom reportedly acquired the contested patents in 1997 and transferred them to IPValue in 2011 to license them off or to pursue patent infringers, with BT getting a share of any proceeds.
Before Suffolk lost its case against Google, Bloomberg said the search engine giant last year retaliated by suing British Telecom for patent infringement.
Co-chairman Stephen Korniczky of the intellectual property practice of Sheppard Mullin in Del Mar, California said about similar litigation like the one against Google, "You would think that determining who owns a patent is a pretty straightforward process. If a patent is assigned to a company, then it's recorded with the patent office. The problem really lies in who owns the company or entity to whom the patents have been assigned."
Bloomberg said that the US Patent and Trademark Office is mulling over the need to make the attributable patent ownership public. Hearings about the proposal are held today in Alexandria, Virginia, and March 26 in San Francisco.
