I just picked up on this, I’m a bit slow to things going on around me so I apologize.

According to his claims, and he may be right, Paul Allen patented all the technologies currently used to deliver content to the world these days.  He has filed a lawsuit against (in alphabetical order) AOL, Apple, eBay, Facebook,  Netflix, Office Depot, OfficeMax, Staples, Yahoo! and YouTube!

Apparently Paul Allen has several patents involving the delivery of content sensitive advertising and delivery of relative information when a viewer is on a website (does my ‘related posts’ count!?) and is suing for an unspecified amount from the companies.

This guy is currently worth 13+ Billion (muahaha) dollars!! I guess perhaps that 13 billion isn’t enough… as an example of what 13 billion dollars can buy a  nerd like me:

710,770,913.08 * thaltech.com Adsense income Aug-2010

434,056,761.27 Arduino Duemilanove Development Boards from SparkFun Electronics (SFE)

732,394,366.2 Turnigy 2200mAh Nano-Tech 11.1v Lithium Polymer Batteries with 5C Charge Rate! (HK)

13,829,934.36 Furion 6 R/C Helicopters by Miniature Aircraft via Heli-Proz (HP) (Talk about learning through experience!)

5,001,923.82 Copies of Adobe Creative Suite 5 Master Collection from (Adobe) ..Holy crap that’s expensive, it can even make a rich guy look poor!

1,300 Bebos (2010)

15.29 Bebos (2008)

7.88 YouTubes (Google)

2.45 2008 Presidential Elections (WSJ)

Good news though.(?) He recently pledged to donate half of his wealth (and every other major corporations?) wealth to philanthropic causes when William Gates (of Microsoft fame) challenged the world’s billionaires to do the same.

Take this as you will folks, good, bad or indifferent, I won’t judge ya :)   More info at Engadget

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