By Ben Fox Rubin A U.S. district court judge mostly upheld his Markman ruling in video-ringtone company Vringo Inc.'s (VRNG) patent lawsuit against a handful of major companies. Vringo recently completed a merger with intellectual-property firm Innovate/Protect, a company that last year filed a patent suit against AOL Inc. (AOL), Google Inc. (GOOG), IAC/InterActiveCorp. (IACI), Gannett Co. (GCI) and Target Corp. (TGT). The company acquired eight patents from Lycos and claims two of those patents were infringed. A court decision known as a Markman ruling--which comes up with definitions of disputed technical terms in a lawsuit--came out in June mostly in favor of Vringo, but the defendants then challenged two of those definitions. The judge Thursday maintained his position on one of the definitions and tweaked the second to include language that both Vringo and the defendants had agreed on but was excluded in error. Vringo said it was pleased the court agreed with it and didn't change the first term and that it also clarified the second term to make it consistent with what both sides of the suit proposed. Google, which is the primary target in the case, didn't respond to a request for comment. A trial date has been set for Oct. 16. Write to Ben Fox Rubin at ben.rubin@dowjones.com Subscribe to WSJ: http://online.wsj.com?mod=djnwires
