Google and Amazon have been sued recently by software development company MasterObjects, TechCrunch , was the first to report the infringement suit .It is noted that MasterObjects obtained Patent (US patent no. 7,752,326), for "System and method for utilizing asynchronous client server communication objects" on July 6, 2010. Master Objects claimed infringement against Amazon for using "custom search suggestions" for its sale of products, saying that amazon has been exploiting its technology right from 2004 for its products sale ( that's the same year when MasterObjects filed their Patent Application for the technology). Later this week on friday MasterObjects Targeted Google also, for the same Patent infringement suit, against using the "Custom search suggestion" or "Instant search drop down feature" for their browsers. Well, google has been using the instant search feature, right after its launch in September last year.
Although the "google suggest" was launched in the year 2004, for suggestions relating to real time search queries. Anyways, my point is simple, the "instant search" or the "custom search suggestions" are being currently used by many online search providers. To name a few Bing search, ebay, Yahoo all uses the real time search suggestions. So, it is indeed surprising why MasterObject picked out, Amazon, ( which is primarily an online shopping portal) to start the litigation spree , which followed google later on , and who knows many more to add on the list , in the near future.
Surprisingly when I visited MasterObjects website, there is a panel called "Demo finder Quest Field" ( i guess similar to instant suggest ), and the introduction page says: " Unlike similar "autosuggest" and "autocomplete" applications on popular websites (such as Amazon, YouTube, and iTunes), the patented QuestFields technology provides an out-of-the-box generic solution that works on any web page and connects to any content source." I guess it is well stated there, who will be the prospective targets! Anyways for the twist and turns in the case, we have to wait and see what MasterObjects has in store for the future.
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