Google, Facebook Sued for Alleged Infringement on Text-Completion Program

Google Inc. (GOOG) and Facebook Inc. were sued for allegedly infringing a patent covering technology that provides auto-completion for computer users searching the Internet.

Google, the world’s most-used search engine, and Palo Alto, California-based Facebook, the world’s largest social network, infringed on the auto-completion technology patent by incorporating it on their websites, officials of Auto-Completion Solutions LLC contend in their lawsuit.

The companies’ use of the patented function without permission harmed ACS, which deserves “to recover damages adequate to compensate it for such infringement,” lawyers for the Frisco, Texas-based company said in a complaint filed yesterday in federal court in Wilmington, Delaware.

Other Internet information providers named in the complaint include Sunnyvale, California-based Yahoo! Inc. and Linkedin Corp., which like Google, is based in Mountain View, California.

“We have not yet received a copy of the complaint and won’t be able to comment until we’ve had a chance to review it,” Jim Prosser, a Google spokesman, said in an e-mailed statement.

Evonne Gomez Morantes, a Yahoo spokeswoman, and Erin O’Hara, a spokeswoman for Linkedin, declined in e-mails to comment on the suit. Andrew Noyes, a spokesman for Facebook, didn’t immediately return calls and e-mails seeking comment.

The case is Auto-Completion Solutions LLC v. Facebook Inc., 11-cv-809, U.S. District Court, District of Delaware (Wilmington).

To contact the reporter on this story: Jef Feeley in Wilmington, Delaware. at jfeeley@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Michael Hytha at mhytha@bloomberg.net.