Monday, October 17, 2011

O.co Wins Patent Suit

Salt Lake City-based O.co, formerly known as Overstock.com, has dodged a patent infringement lawsuit filed by Alcatel-Lucent USA, Inc., the firm said Monday afternoon. According to court filings, the jury found that both O.co and its co-defendant Newegg did not infringe on any of the patents Alcatel had asserted the firms had infringed upon. Alcatel had sued the companies over search engine technology and e-commerce, based on patents it had filed back in 1992. O.co President Jonathan Johnson explained in a statement that it had "no choice but to fight" when it was sued over the patent, which it characterized as one that did not "remotely apply to your business." In its release on the win, O.co stopped short of calling Alcatel-Lucent a "patent troll" outright, but did talk about the need to fight "non-practicing entities"--the polite term for "patent troll"--and their lawsuits.