Google's Summary Judgment Partially Overturned

On Wednesday, December 26, 2007, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit vacated part of a summary judgment granted to Google in a patent infringement suit brought against the search engine.

A Wisconsin district court originally granted Google's motion for summary judgment in the patent infringement suit brought by Hyperphrase Technologies. The suit claimed that Google, in using its AutoLink and AdSense, infringed four of Hyperphrase's patents. The appeals court ruled differently and remanded part of the case, vacating a summary judgment in Google's favor that AutoLink did not infringe two of Hyperphrase's patents. However, the appeals court agreed that Google's AdSense did not infringe any of the patents.

AutoLink is part of Google's toolbar and turns non-linked content on websites into links back to Google-related sites, such as Google Maps. Google's AdSense is an ad serving program that allows website owners to enable text, image and video advertisements on their sites.

The case was remanded back to the Wisconsin district court.