Microsoft co-founder Allen dealt blow in patent case

Paul Allen filed his suit back in August

A judge has threatened to throw out the high-profile patent suit brought forward by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen.

US district judge Marsha Pechman said that she would dismiss the case on 28 December unless Allen's legal team re-submits its complaints to be more specific.

Allen's representatives told the Wall Street Journal that they plan to re-submit the complaint prior to the deadline, calling the ruling a "procedural issue".

Allen made headlines in August when he issued the massive filing accusing several major vendors of infringing on patents held by his licencing firm,.

Offering further star-power to the case were the names of the defendants. Among those targeted in the filing were Google, e-Bay, Apple, Facebook, Netflix and Yahoo.

The case stems from a series of patents held by Allen's Interval Licencing LLC. The filing claims that the companies were in violation of patents that included technology for displaying information within a browser, showing related items and presenting "attention manager" features.

Analysts have suggested that despite the long list of defendants, Google is the primary target of the filing.