Judge Orders Facebook To Reveal Source Code In Patent Dispute
from the that-seems-extreme dept
Another day, another ridiculous situation brought on by patents. Back in November, we wrote about how a company almost no one had ever heard of, called Leader Technologies (name not descriptive of the company) had sued Facebook for patent infringement over Patent 7,139,761 on associating a piece of data with multiple categories. As broad and obvious as that appears to be, it struck us that the whole lawsuit appeared to be a publicity stunt by this no-name company. Yet, for a publicity stunt, things may be getting troublesome. A magistrate judge has ordered Facebook to turn over its source code to the other company. Now, whatever you think of proprietary source code vs. open source, it doesn't seem right that a service like Facebook, which does a lot of different things with its service, should be required to turn over its entire source code to some tiny company with an overly broad patent. It sounds like Facebook is fighting this, as it should. I could understand (maybe) such an order if there were a charge of copyright infringement and direct copying of source code -- but a patent infringement claim shouldn't need source code.
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Filed Under: patents, source code
Companies: facebook, leader technologies
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Hopefully this is the first in a long series of licensing and information sharing agreements and Facebook will go legit.
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Re:
I know *I* haven't "often wondered about Facebook's APIs" so who is this "We" you're speaking of? You and the mouse in your pocket?
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And it's easy to mimic a set of APIs from another product. In fact, it's pretty common to allow for code for one service to be interchangeable with another service. It'd be SMART for Facebook to use existing API references used by other products so that developers wouldn't need to change as much source code to allow their code to work with different services.
None of that requires the underlying code to be at all similar. Just the API call references.
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I'm a huge fan of Open Source but..
The US Patient system is so screwed up.
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Re: I'm a huge fan of Open Source but..
my spell checker just kept me from making a fool out of myself by spellin gmisspell as mispell - whew! - dodged a bullet there!
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Re: Re: I'm a huge fan of Open Source but..
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Prior art much?
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Algorithms
IIUC, the trick is that software patents are often patents on algorithms, in essence. So you do need the source code to see *how* it's coming up with results. If they got the same results through a different method, it's not infringing.
This is, of course, a perfect example of why software patents make no sense.
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Re: Algorithms
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Facebook is not revolutionary
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Re: Facebook is not revolutionary
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Re: Re: Facebook is not revolutionary
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Wait, what?
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Re: Wait, what?
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Seriously???
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What about the people examining these patents?
Are there any patent examiners out there? Can you put up a good argument as to why this is legit?
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Wow, just wow...
The Patent Office apparently is granting patents on things it knows nothing about. Where are the subject matter experts?
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Re: Wow, just wow...
Thats just it. People trying to make rulings and pass judgement on things and issues they don't understand and instead of actually trying to learn about the issue at had they just let themselves by led by the hand of whoever can butter them up the best.
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I don't get it...
This seems to describe almost every single web site with a login that's ever been made. I have trouble seeing how it was novel in 2006 when the patent was issued, and I have trouble seeing how it could have been novel even at the end of 2003 when it was filed.
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Joke Patent - Legal Reality
This FB suit is just the tip of the iceberg where patent infringement suits are concerned, with legal firms established solely to buy up patents and sue everyone to make a living, and companies trying to patent everything from odor to the human genome to all forms of life on the planet. Its what happens when Corporations are given citizen's rights and pure profit motive steers the course.
FB is NOT infringing on any standing patent, nor does the vague nature of the patent in question limit potential litigation to FB. These garbage patents far out number the legitimate ones. The real solution is to scrap both the patent and copyright systems, clean up the vague and litigous garbage, and re-institute the systems in a manner that reasonably protects intellectual property while equally protecting the citizenry.
** Oh, and kill the Corporate rights rulings - leave citizenship to the citizens.
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If you think this code us just being handed over with no restrictions, you're nuts. This code will likely be under a protective order that very carefully circumscribes who can see the code, where, and for what purpose.
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you could look at the patent, determine it is bullocks snd throw the tards out on their keisters. This would not only save the poor taxpayers a bunch of money, but it would send a message.
btw, I thought algorithms were not given patent, copyright, or trademark protection. When did this change ?
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no-name
In the late 1800's Herman Hollerith's tabulating company was a no-name firm, but is went on to become IBM. Ever hear of it?
TechDirt?? Never heard of it.
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patent law is outmoded
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Should be interesting to see where this case goes. Believe it or not, I don't know.
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