AltaVista studies patent lawsuits

AltaVista is considering taking fellow web companies to court over their use of search technology.

David Wetherell, chief executive of parent company CMGI, says AltaVista owns some 30 patents covering searches.

He claims virtually any firm that indexes the web is in violation of at least several of those patents and could face imminent legal action.

Mr Wetherell has not elaborated on which companies constitute likely targets in the recent interview, published by Internetworld.com.

But he did say the first cases could surface in the first quarter of this year.

It is not the first time that a leading internet player has asserted sovereignty over its infrastructure.

Last June BT claimed hyperlinks - the ubiquitous bars of coded text on web pages that connect users to other web pages - are its intellectual property, citing a patent awarded in 1989.

It began proceedings against US ISP Prodigy in December.