Judge tosses Paul Allen's suit against OfficeMax, others

NEW YORK -- Billionaire Paul Allen, co-founder of software giant Microsoft Corp., will have to provide more specifics if he wants damages for patent infringement from some of the world's biggest technology companies.

A federal judge in Seattle threw out Allen's lawsuit against a slew of different technology and online retail companies on Friday. U.S. District Court Judge Marsha Pechman wrote that Allen failed to "indicate with any specificity" which products violate his intellectual property rights.

Pechman gave Allen until Dec. 28 to file an amended suit with more details.

David Postman, a spokesman for Allen, called the judge's ruling Friday "purely procedural" and said Allen plans to file an amended complaint soon.

Allen originally filed the claims in August, targeting Google Inc., Apple Inc., Facebook Inc., eBay Inc., Yahoo Inc., Netflix Inc., AOL Inc., Office Depot Inc., OfficeMax Inc., Staples Inc. and Google-owned YouTube LLC.

He says the companies have infringed on four Web technology patents held by his company Interval Licensing LLC.