If IP litigation is down, don’t blame Mike McKool. He’s doing his best to keep work flowing. On Tuesday the founding partner of McKool Smith filed a patent infringement suit in Tyler, Texas, federal court against more than 20 of the best-known companies in the Fortune 100, including Amazon, Citigroup, Google, Apple and Staples. McKool’s client, Eolas Technologies, claims that the defendants have infringed two of its patents on technology allowing interactivity on the Web.
The name Eolas should ring a bell. Back in 2004, the company won a $565 million judgment against Microsoft for one of the patents being asserted in the current action. On appeal, the Federal Circuit upheld the jury’s finding of infringement and the damages award, but found the trial court had erred in not allowing certain evidence of prior art. The case was sent back for a retrial, but a confidential settlement was reached before a new trial could get under way.
