A tiny AIM company worth just £2.4 million is in talks with three financial backers to fund litigation against internet behemoth Google.

Independent International Research set up a service called G-mail to distribute some of its financial research material to clients in May 2002. Two years later Google launched its worldwide Gmail service to rival Microsoft’s phenomenally successful hotmail system.

Since then Independent International Research, led by chairman and majority owner Shane Smith, has been negotiating the ownership of this intellectual property. Smith now wants to take legal action to secure these rights.

This follows a successful similar action in Germany by the owner of Gmail there. Smith is now talking to a hedge fund, an investment boutique and a specialist US provider of legal funding about raising enough finance to bring an action against Google.

The Gmail trademark, currently being registered, could be worth between £25 million and £34 million. However, Independent International Research cautions that ‘dealing in the shares on the basis of a prospective settlement or court award would be highly speculative.’

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