AOL Sues Tribal Voice

AOL Sues Tribal Voice is the latest item crossing the POCG news desk. America Online, the undisputed Goliath in the online communications market, has filed papers against Tribal Voice, a leading provider of instant messaging and online community software, claiming that the company’s use of common Internet communications term buddy list constitutes an intellectual property infringement.

This suit follows a similar one that AOL filed against AT&T, but differs in that this suit represents a global, public company attacking a small, private technology innovator that gives away its PowWow online communications service. Interestingly, the AT&T law suit also includes the term instant messaging, which AOL asked Tribal Voice to stop using in April, 1999, but has since decided to drop from the law suit despite the fact that Tribal Voice refused to stop using this term.