Paul Allen filed a lawsuit against Apple, Facebook, Google and eBay

One of Microsoft founder Paul Allen has accused a number of major companies, including Apple, Yahoo, Facebook, Google and eBay, the illegal use of technology, patented by his company Interval Licensing.
The lawsuit on behalf of the company Interval Licensing, founded by Allen in 1990, was filed on Friday, August 27, in Federal District Court in Washington. In documents sent to the court, states that the plaintiff demands the immediate cessation of illegal, in his opinion, the use of patented technologies and expects to receive the award, not yet specified.

The petition is mainly referred to the four patents owned by Interval Licensing. It is about technology. used in the search engines, allowing users to receive pop-up while working in other applications, as well as used in online stores.

In addition to these companies as defendants in the lawsuit filed by Allen, listed AOL, YouTube, Netflix, Office Depot, OfficeMax and Staples.

Commenting on the filing of the claim, a spokesman for Interval Licensing said that Paul Allen first went to court with such a requirement. “Some technologies developed by people who worked on Allen’s ten years ago, now play a key role in the search engines and online commerce. They have become part of our everyday life in the web and have proved their value to the industry” – said the representative of Interval Licensing in an interview with BBC News.

In turn, the company Google, Facebook and eBay have already announced that they intend to refute the charges against them. “The lawsuit, filed against some of the most innovative companies in America, reflects the sad trend of attempts to transfer competitive with the market space in the courtroom,” said a statement released by Google.

Paul Allen and Bill Gates founded Microsoft in 1975. From the Microsoft Management Allen actually went in 1983, after having been forced to undergo a lengthy course of treatment in connection with the discovery of his lymphoma. At the same time Allen has retained a large stake in Microsoft.

Interval Licensing Allen founded in 1992, in the heyday of the company employs over 110 scientists, physicists and engineers. With Interval Licensing, in particular, collaborated Robert Shaw (Robert Shaw), one of the founders of chaos theory, and one of the developers of protocols TCP / IP – David Reed (David Reed).

Paul Allen and one of the richest people in the world, in July 2010 announced that bequeaths his fortune to 13.5 billion dollars to charity.