Google wins Vringo case over AdWords ‘patent infringement’

Google on Friday won a lawsuit related to patent infringement by AdWords from Vringo on appeal. In 2011, it took over old patents from search engine Lycos and thus sued, among others, Google, because that company would infringe the patents.

It’s the umpteenth statement since the two years ago got into a disagreement about AdWords’ filtering functionality. In December 2012, the jury already ruled in an earlier case that Google had to pay $ 30 million to Vringo, but the latter was not satisfied with that.

Vringo disagreed with the changes Google made to its AdWords system after the ruling and started a new case. The judge agreed with Vringo and said that the infringements had to end. He set the level of the royalties that Google had to pay, 1.36 percent of the revenue that Google derives from AdWords in the US, to almost exactly the percentage that Vringo demanded.

Now, however, the Court of Appeals has ruled that the patents Vringo is alleging are invalid. According to Bloomberg, the Court agrees with Google, which says that this concerns well-known filtering techniques, and not an entirely new invention. Google says it is happy with the ruling, while Vringo is now considering its options.