A patent infringement dispute between Overture Services, a
subsidiary of Yahoo!, and rival FindWhat.com has ended in a
mistrial after a California jury was unable to reach a verdict in
the case over a method of ranking search results.
The dispute dates back to January 2002 when Pasadena-based
Overture, formerly known as GoTo, filed a lawsuit alleging that
FindWhat.com had infringed a patent relating to a "system and
method for influencing a position on a search result list generated
by a computer network search engine."
The trial has now collapsed.
"We continue to believe that FindWhat.com has never infringed
any valid and enforceable claim of the '361 patent," said Craig
Pisaris-Henderson, FindWhat.com's chairman and CEO.
According to FindWhat.com, the judge has yet to rule on the
issue of whether the patent is unenforceable because of alleged
inequitable conduct by Overture. A hearing on this and other issues
is scheduled for 24th June.
Overture filed a similar action against Google in April 2002.
That case settled shortly before Google's floatation last year with
the announcement that Google would get a licence to several patents
relating to paid placements in search results. In return, Google
agreed to give 2.7 million shares to Yahoo!
