Patent Office Is Friendster's Friend

from the they're-ba-ack dept

The former champ of the social networking space, Friendster, may finally have a way to claw back at the sites that have overtaken it: patent litigation. The company announced today that it has received a broad patent for a "system, method, and apparatus for connecting users in an online computer system based on their relationships within social networks." In other words, it's basically a patent on online social networking. At this point, the company hasn't explicitly stated that it intends to sue anyone, though the company says it will protect its intellectual property, which isn't hard to interpret. Amusingly, the company claimed to have forgotten it had every applied for the patent, which is odd since from the nascent days of the space, the various players were fighting about who owned what intellectual property. The coming legal battles (in our crystal ball, we're seeing a court in East Texas for some reason) could prove interesting. First of all, there could be prior art on this "technology" as Friendster wasn't even the first social networking site. But even if the patent were granted legitimately, it's intuitive how this patent would be more of a hindrance than an incentive for innovation. Of course, if the patent system is designed to act as a consolation prize to companies that fail, then it's doing its job just fine.
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  • identicon
    Frink, 6 Jul 2006 @ 8:54pm

    We really shouldn't discuss this for fear of litigation.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Dan, 6 Jul 2006 @ 9:02pm

    social networking

    I think I still have my SixDegrees.com login around here somewhere.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      Nobody, 2 Nov 2006 @ 10:57am

      Re: social networking

      Dan,

      If you are who I think you are you only have the 6 degrees login because you rewrote thier hacked code into something nice and clean. Ah the pain of moving from one failed dot com to another.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    the internet, 6 Jul 2006 @ 10:59pm

    something we call...

    isn't the entire internet (well the 40% that isn't porn [and even then you have your arguments..]) nothing but a giant "social" network...?

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Infested Templar, 7 Jul 2006 @ 2:48am

    one thing that would go a long way to help this problem with patents would be to reduce the duration. Something like maybe 10 years for physical inventions, maybe 2 years for software stuff. If you don't do anything with it in 2 years you may as well not have it in the IT industry as it moves so quickly (and this would speed it up more).

    The worst though is buisness model patents. There is no point in them except to stifle competition. I'd like to see someone try to claim that people wouldn't invent different buisness models witout patents. Endless competition and coppying is what promotes the speed of inovation in buisness models to allow people to stay ahead. Wich leads to the same point about other patents....

    Perhaps scrapping patents alltogether would be going a bit to far but it would be at least 90% better then the current situation with patents.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      Mousky, 7 Jul 2006 @ 6:32am

      Re:

      Software is protected under copyright law. Under no circumstances should software be protected under patent law.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Mousky, 7 Jul 2006 @ 6:35am

    USPTO

    I really need someone at the USPTO explain how they granted such a broad patent. Also what exactly is a social networking site? How is a forum or chat room any different from a social networking site?

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      Anonymous of Course, 7 Jul 2006 @ 8:36am

      Re: USPTO

      Another example of how much a peer review
      system is needed at USPTO.

      Isn't it about now that angry due jumps in to call
      everyone an idiot and explain how patents are
      protecting the garage shop inventor from evil
      corporations?

      link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    anonymous coward, 7 Jul 2006 @ 10:07am

    Isn't my grandfather's Rolodex prior art?

    link to this | view in chronology ]


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