The U.S. Court of Appeals ruled on Wednesday that Google’s AdSense program did not infringe on any patents as alleged by Hyperphrase Technologies. However the court overturned part of a lower court decision, landing Google’s AutoLink browser tool back in court.

• Hyperphrase Technologies initially filed a lawsuit against Google in April 2006, making claims that AdSense and AutoLink infringed claims in four Hyperphrase patents related to contextual linking and presentation of information.
• The U.S. District Court for the Western District of Wisconsin made a judgment in Google’s favor, which Hyperphrase appealed.
• On Wednesday, part of that first decision was upheld, as related to AdSense, but another portion of the case relating to the AutoLink browser tool was overturned.
• This part of the case alleges that Google infringes on two Hyperphrase patents, and the latest ruling sent the case back to district court to be reexamined.

The AutoLink browser tool parses web pages for fragments of text in certain formats, and then transforms them into links to web pages deemed appropriate and relevant. For example, it will automatically link all U.S . street addresses and vehicle identification (VIN) numbers, as well as package tracking numbers, and International Standard Book Numbers (ISBNs). (more…)