Thursday, September 24, 2009
Software developer SpeedTrack has filed suit against nearly two dozen major online retailers, including Amazon.com, Best Buy, Overstock.com, Nike, Costco and Dell, accusing the major online retailers of infringing some patent that supposedly covers a search mechanism customers can use to locate products on their websites.The complaint, filed yesterday in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, accuses the defendants of infringing U.S. Patent Number 5,544,360, titled "Method for accessing computer files and data, using linked categories assigned to each data file record on entry of the data file record".
Dubbed GIA (Guided Information Access), originally developed and patented by SpeedTrack co-founder and CTO Jerzy Lewak, the system is designed to guide users to contextually relevant information when searching specific keywords, ensuring a result rather than a page that says "no result can be found" or whatever. According to its website, law enforcement agencies like police departments use SpeedTrack's GIA software to sort through massive criminal records data, which supposedly helps them solve crimes faster.
SOURCE - TechCrunch
Labels: patent, retail, speedtrack
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