When You Go Out Of Business, You Can Always Sue Google (GOOG)(AAPL)(MSFT)

By Douglas A. McIntyre Published Jan 2, 7:32PM EST

Follow 24/7 Wall St. on Google

This post may contain links from our sponsors and affiliates, and Flywheel Publishing may receive compensation for actions taken through them.

Intertainer, which was one of the pioneers in delivering movies over the internet has sued Apple, Google, and Napster. Intertainer was so early into the internet movie business that it folded. Or, maybe it was just badly run.

Intertainer claims that the companies listed in its complaint violate patents to its digital entertainment platform.

The idea that Intertainer could collect something on it suit is not entirely insane. Creative Technology brought and IP suit against Apple for certain interfaces on the iPod. Creative ended up collectng a large settlement.

Burst.com, a defunct server technology company, filed IP suits against Apple and Microsoft. Microsoft settled the suit for $60 million.

The only way Intertainer will get any money from its business is to win one of these suits. Some law firm must be willing to take some risk on that.

You never know.

Douglas A. McIntyre can be reached at [email protected]. He does not own securities in companies that he writes about.

About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.