Judge dismisses lawsuit from Interval Licensing over lack of specific products named, but revised lawsuit planned before end of year, says company owned by Microsoft co-founder

Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen has had his patent infringement case against technology giants including Apple, Google and Facebook thrown out of court – yet says the lawsuit is still "on track".

Allen's research firm, Interval Licensing, is suing AOL, Apple, eBay, Google, Yahoo and six other technology companies over four e-commerce patents it says it has owned since the 1990s.

But a US district judge on Friday ruled that Allen had "failed to identify any infringing products or devices with any specificity". Judge Marsha Pechman said the court and the 11 defendants were left guessing at what products the patents refer to.

Interval said the Washington District Court ruling was just a "procedural issue" and that the lawsuit is "staying on track". The company is expected to file an amended complaint before 28 December.

Among the patents are one for the "Browser for use in navigating a body of information, with particular application to browsing information represented by audiovisual data" (USPTO 6,263,507; two for an "Attention manager for occupying the peripheral attention of a person in the vicinity of a display device" (USPTO 6,034,652 and 6,788,314) and another for "Alerting users to items of current interest." (USPTO 6,757,682).

In its submission to the case, Google argued that Interval's case rested on "uninformative and non-specific allegations" claims that are being brought without "any particularity" to the companies involved. A spokesman for the Mountain View company later said the suit was part of an "unfortunate trend of people trying to compete in the courtroom instead of the marketplace."

Yahoo, Netflix, AOL, Office Depot, OfficeMax and Staples are also named in the lawsuit. Facebook said the case was "completely without merit" and would "fight it vigorously".

David Postman, a spokesman for Paul Allen and Interval, outlined the reasoning behind the lawsuit when it was filed on 27 August. "This lawsuit is necessary to protect our investment in innovation," he said. "We are not asserting patents that other companies have filed, nor are we buying patents originally assigned to someone else. These are patents developed by and for Interval."

Interval owns a portfolio of technology patents but does not manufacture anything.

Allen, 57, co-founded Microsoft with Bill Gates in 1975. He officially resigned from the Microsoft board in 2000, but launched Interval in 1992.

With an estimated net personal worth of $12.7bn (£7.8bn), Allen ranked 17th in Forbes' 2010 list of the 400th richest people in America, one place behind Steve Ballmer, Microsoft's chief executive.