Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, who was once the second-richest American, has accused 11 companies including Google and Apple of infringing patents he holds for online-shopping technology.
A lawsuit filed in Seattle Friday by Interval Licensing, a business Allen controls, also targets EBay, AOL, Facebook, Netflix, Office Depot, OfficeMax, Staples, Yahoo and Google’s YouTube.
Interval Licensing is seeking a court order to block further use of the inventions and order unspecified cash compensation.
‘‘This lawsuit against some of America’s most innovative companies reflects an unfortunate trend of people trying to compete in the courtroom instead of the marketplace,’’ a Google spokesman, Aaron Zamost, said.
Interval Licensing owns the patents of a defunct computer-science and communications research business Allen and David Liddle founded in 1992, according to a statement from the Seattle-based company.
The four patents cited in the lawsuit are primarily common electronic-commerce applications for displaying and categorising product information.
‘‘All of these patents appear to be lightweight inventions that are intended to improve a computer user’s online experience,’’ said Dennis Crouch, an associate professor at the University of Missouri School of Law in Columbia.
‘‘That said, the improvements disclosed in these patents represent important core features that Internet users rely upon.’’
Facebook, owner of the world’s biggest social-networking website, said the lawsuit is without merit.
‘‘We will fight it vigorously,’’ Andrew Noyes, a spokesman for the Palo Alto, California-based company said.
Interval Research employed more than 110 workers and helped fund outside projects, including work done by Google founders Sergey Brin and Lawrence Page, according to the statement.
David Postman, a spokesman for Allen, said in the statement that suing is necessary to protect the ‘‘groundbreaking’’ work Interval Research contributed to the internet economy.
‘‘Legal risk and patent risk in this day and age is part of the process of doing business,’’ said Colin Gillis, an analyst at BGC Partners LP in New York. The most interesting part was it doesn’t include Microsoft or Amazon, he said.
Allen, 57, co-founded Microsoft, the world’s largest software maker, with Bill Gates in 1975 and was once the second- richest American behind Gates, according to Forbes magazine.
He now runs Vulcan, a firm he uses to invest in more than 50 companies in the cable, television, telecommunications, sports and biotech industries.
