“Investor and writer James Altucher has an interesting post up at TechCrunch about a patent-infringement lawsuit that might soon be lobbed at Google.
The post is called, in typically bold Altucher fashion, “Why Google Might Be Going To $0.”
Here’s the story in a nutshell.
Way back in the 1990s, a computer scientist at Carnegie Mellon created and patented the technology that became Lycos. The patents covered several aspects of monetizing search, such as using algorithms and click rates to determine which search ads are most revelant.
Later, when a company called Overture applied for patents on search monetization, Overture was granted several patents but refused others–on the grounds that Lycos had already patented them.
Still later, Yahoo used the search patents Overture was granted to sue Google for hundreds of millions of dollars.
Meanwhile, Lycos cratered….”
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