Google Wins Bid Against Vringo To Overturn Multimillion-Dollar Patent-Infringement Verdict

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington has settled a dispute between Google and Vringo over filtering technology that determines placement of advertisements in search query results.

The court determined that Vringo's claim that it owns the fundamental technology used in Google's AdWords and AdSense for search products is invalid. The patents relate to a method for filtering Internet search results that use content-based and collaborative filtering.

Google won a bid to overturn the $30.5 million patent-infringement verdict that Vringo initially had won in November 2012. The suit against Google, and some customers, challenged the validity of ownership of the methods described in the patents once belonging to the search engine Lycos.

The document, filed Friday, states a reversal of action taken against Google and some of its customers including AOL, IAC Search & Media, Gannett Group, and Target because the "claims of the '420 and '664 patents are invalid for obviousness."

During the trial in 2012, a jury found Google guilty of infringing on the patents and ordered the Mountain View, Calif. company and several of its advertising partners to pay Vringo $30 million. The jury also determined that Google should pay an ongoing royalty to Vringo.

Google, of course, denied infringement of the patents -- challenging their validity and value assigned by the jury, along with one patent registered at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

The document outlines the process, the infringement allegations and the trial proceedings. The ruling states that "claims asserted by I/P Engine, Inc. (“I/P Engine”) disclose no new technology, but instead simply recite the use of a generic computer to implement a well-known and widely-practiced technique for organizing information, they fall outside the ambit of 35 U.S.C. 101. And if this determination had been made  in the first instance as directed by the Supreme Court unnecessary litigation, and nearly two weeks of trial and imposition on citizen jurors, could have been avoided," per the filing.

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