Performance Pricing has asked the US Court for the Eastern District of Texas to drop patent infringement charges against Microsoft over its online advertising technology. Microsoft is said to be the fourth defendant to exit the media sales consulting firm’s suit.
The suit was filed last year by Performance Pricing, claiming infringement upon its patent for “systems and methods for transacting business over a global communications network such as internet.”
Performance Pricing alleged that Google, AOL, Microsoft, and Yahoo infringed its “competitive bidding” patent. In June, it asked the court to drop Yahoo from the patent dispute.
In March IAC Search & Media was dropped from the charges, and the company dismissed the litigation against A9.com last November. Only Google and AOL remain in the litigation.