Hung Jury Gives Both Sides Cheer In Yahoo Patent Claim
from the we-are-the-champions dept
Sometimes court battles muddy an issue more than clarifying it. The case in question is Yahoo’s suit against FindWhat, which uses an auction-based method for selling ads in search results. Yahoo claims the patent on this technology, and hasn’t been afraid to wield it. Last year Yahoo extracted roughly $300 million worth of stock from Google with said patent. The claim against FindWhat went to trial, and has now ended in a hung jury. It seems that the jury felt some of the claims were valid, some weren’t, and some it couldn’t decide on. How’s that for clarity? The result is a mistrial with both Yahoo and FindWhat claiming victory. Stay tuned for a post-trial hearing in June.
