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Ad-pricing Systems Under Fire in Priceplay Campaign
Priceplay.com appears to be ramping up its litigation campaign involving three patents (6,978,253, 8,050,982, 8,494,917) that relate to automated pricing systems over a global communication network. Most recently the entity sued Facebook, asserting two of the three patents involved in the campaign and accusing Facebook’s system for selling ad space of infringing the patents-in-suit. Priceplay, a former operating company, began filing suits earlier this year and has asserted some combination of the patents-in-suit along with ’253 against AOL, Google, and LinkedIn during the last few months. The ’253 patent was also asserted in 2007 and 2009 by Acacia Research subsidiary Performance Pricing. Assignment records indicate that Acacia had a license to ’253 and ’982 patents but did not own them. RPX reviewed the patents-in-suit, along with three other published patent applications, as part of an open market opportunity in January 2013. 4/22, District of Delaware, 1:14cv00512
April 24, 2014
Google is Third Company to Be Sued by Priceplay over Online Ads
Following recent suits against AOL and LinkedIn, Priceplay.com has sued Google for alleged infringement of two patents related to Internet-based transactions (8,050,982, 8,494,917). On the basis of assignment records, Priceplay appears to be controlled by inventor Wayne Lin. The two patents-in-suit are continuations of Lin’s earlier 6,978,253 patent and are the same patents that were asserted against AOL and LinkedIn. Priceplay contends that Google infringes the ‘982 and ‘917 patents by selling ad space to e-commerce merchants through cost-per-click bidding and interactive competitive activity.
April 3, 2014