Google is not going through its best times ever as it has recently been charged with patent infringement for several of its web applications. The lawsuit was filed by GraphOn, a company that develops server based applications. According to the latter, four of Google’s services: AdWords, Base, Sites and YouTube, infringe on GraphOn’s patents.

Google officials refused to comment, saying they would do so when they receive the complaint.

GraphOn people said they became owners of the patents when the company acquired Networking Engineering Software Inc. (NES) back in February 2005. Robert Dilworth, CEO of GraphOn, said the number of patents his company owns as a result of acquiring NES is now of 23 and is expected to rise, as GraphOn has several patent applications waiting for the approval of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. He added that an aggresive approach is the right way to go about protecting the technology in order to maximize its value to the company.

This is not the first lawsuit GraphOn has started; in November 2005, it pressed charges against AutoTrader.com Inc. The latter was accused of having infringed on two of the former’s patents, which are also included in the Google case. An agreement between the two companies was reached this year in January.

More recently, in August 2007, GraphOn accused Juniper Networks Inc. of having infringed on its property. Some other companies have had to deal with GraphOn lawyers as well: CareerBuilder, Classified Ventures, eHarmony.com, IAC/InterActiveCorp, Match.com and Yahoo.