ChoiceStream, Inc. (Cambridge, MA) has filed a declaratory judgment action against Lycos, Inc. (Waltham, MA) alleging invalidity and non-infringement of U.S. Patent Nos. 6,029,161; 6,308,175; 6,314,420; and 6,775,664, directed to, among other things, “a multi-level mindpool system,” an adaptive search engine, and an information filter designed to filter network information desired by a user.
The complaint vaguely refers to “improper threats” made by Lycos against ChoiceStream’s customer Blockbuster regarding Blockbuster’s use of ChoiceStream’s RealRelevance® software. The complaint then refers to a co-pending case, Lycos, Inc. v. Tivo, Netflix, and Blockbuster, 07-11469-MLW (D. Mass. filed Aug. 9, 2007), where Lycos purportedly indicated an intent to bring action against ChoiceStream, and asserts that should a settlement agreement in that case be enforced, ChoiceStream will have an implied license to the Lycos patents.
Reading between the lines, my hunch is that the settlement was never finalized and this complaint (which was likely filed as related to the Tivo case since both are before Judge Wolf) is meant to be a spur to Lycos to either finalize the agreement or acknowledge ChoiceStream’s rights to the patents at issue.
ChoiceStream, Inc. v. Lycos, Inc., 10-10065-MLW (D. Mass. Jan. 18, 2010)
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