LIBERTY TOWNSHIP, Ohio - Microsoft and Google were sued last week by a company that claims to own a patent on paid search models.
Paid Search Engine Tools of Liberty Township, Ohio, claimed in the lawsuit that Microsoft's paid search platform adCenter and Google's AdWords program violate patent No. 7,043,450 for "Paid Search Engine Bid Management."
J. Robert Chambers, the attorney for Paid Search Engine Tools, said the 2006 patent was for a method of optimizing keyword bids. The abstract filed with the U.S. Patent Office describes it as a system for monitoring keyword bids across one or more search engines so that that marketers can adjust their pay-per-click bids.
Paid Search Engine Tools previously provided this service to marketers, Chambers said, but Google, Microsoft and Yahoo! cut into the company's business when they began to offer the service.
Chambers said Paid Search Engine Tools is seeking damages and an injunction against Google and Microsoft.
The case was brought in the Eastern District of Texas, Marshall Division, an area considered to be among the most plaintiff-friendly venues in the country for patent lawsuits. Google, which faces other patent-infringement suits in that division, has advocated for restrictions on the localities where patent holders can file lawsuits, urging that lawsuits be brought in venues with a reasonable connection to the case.
Paid Search Engine Tools filed a similar lawsuit against Yahoo! in September 2007. Yahoo! asked the court to dismiss the lawsuit and declare Paid Search Engine Tools' patent invalid.
Yahoo! previously sued Google for infringing a patent relating to its paid search platform. That case was settled in August 2004, just before Google went public.
