This week a federal appeals court in the United States dealt a blow to online behemoth Google, Inc. In a lawsuit brought against Google by Hyperphrase Technologies LLC, a summary judgement had been reached by a lesser court in Google’s favor regarding the use of technology behind their AdSense and AutoLink. The patent decision by the federal court reversed a portion of that summary judgement, dealing a blow to Google.

The original case was brought to court in Wisconsin and alleged that Google had infringed on four patents owned by Hyperphrase when they launched AdSense and AutoLink. The Wisconsin court had decided completely in Google’s favor, tossing the case right out the window. Hyperphrase brought the case up for appeal, finally seeing the first glimmer of the wheels of justice turning this week with the partial win.

The partial judgement was rendered based on a technicality of language - literally a case of plural versus singular language:

The district court held that the definition of “data reference” was set forth in the ‘321 patent’s specification and was intended to govern all of the Patents-In-Suit: “[A] unique phrase or word which may be used in a record to refer to another record or record segment.” ‘321 patent col.8 ll.30-32. But the district court further held that “[t]he unmistakeable meaning of these terms is that there be a reference to a single, specific record which the created link retrieves,” and emphasized that a data reference can only refer to “one and only one record.” Summary Judgment Order at 18-19.

The language barrier occurred in the AutoLink portion of the case. The original judgement reached by the Wisconsin court in the AdSense portion of the case remains the same.

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