Attorneys representing Polaris IP filed a claim of patent infringement in U.S. District Court of the Eastern District of Texas against AOL, Amazon, Borders, Google, IAC, and Yahoo with regards to Texas-based Polaris IP and their automatic message routing patent. The lawsuit charges the companies with implementing systems that "comprise interpreting electronic messages with rule base and case base knowledge engines" as described in the patent held by the plaintiff, "Automatic message interpretation and routing system."
The lawsuit seeks an injunction against continued infringement but it is more likely that the plaintiff is hoping the companies will want to settle for a large sum of crisp cash instead. The method and system detailed in the patent describes a way "for automatically interpreting an electronic message including the steps of (a) receiving an electronic message from a source; (b) interpreting the electronic message using a rule base and case base knowledge engine; and © retrieving one or more predetermined responses corresponding to the interpretation of the electronic message from a repository for automatic delivery to the source."