In a twist on the classic David-and-Goliath formula, Web giant Yahoo! is suing Menlo Park, CA, start-up Xfire for patent infringement. The basis of the complaint, filed last week in US District Court (Northern District of California) and served on Xfire representatives just two days ago, alleges that Xfire is willfully infringing on a patent controlled by Yahoo! Inc.
The patent, referred to as the '125 patent for the last three numbers of US Patent No. 6,699,125 (see screenshots for select pages from the patent documents), was granted to two then-Yahoo! employees Brian Gottlieb and Chris Kirmse on March 2, 2004. As is typical, ownership of inventions by employees remains with the corporation the employees work for. Such ownership rights are usually sealed in hiring contracts signed by the employee when he or she is first brought on.
In the case of the '125 patent, Gottlieb and Kirmse were employed by Yahoo! when they developed certain technologies for a game-specific variation on Yahoo's popular Yahoo! Messenger. Yahoo! has been the sole assignee--or owner--of the '125 patent since it was granted.
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GameSpot
Yahoo! sues Xfire for patent infringement
