Google Must Face Revived Acacia Patent Suit Over Spreadsheets (1)

Alphabet Inc.'s Google can’t dodge a lawsuit claiming that its software applications, including Google Docs and Google Sheets, infringe patents related to using and editing multiple spreadsheets.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit Oct. 9 said a lower court was wrong to cancel three spreadsheet patents owned by Data Engine Technologies LLC, a unit of patent holding company Acacia Research Group. A trial judge said four of Data Engine’s patents that Google was accused of infringing were invalid for covering abstract ideas. But the appeals court said the judge was only correct about one of the patents, ...