Facebook Sued For Patent Infringement For Online Photo Albums
from the the-patent-system,-she-is-broken dept
A few years back, patent troll FotoMedia sued dozens of companies that hosted photos online for patent infringement. Many were small mom-and-pop outfits who could barely afford a lawyer to deal with this sort of thing. Some even talked of leaving the country, since running a business in the US became too expensive due to such patent trolling lawsuits. Still, many firms settled, because that's cheaper than fighting. The FotoMedia shakedown got extra attention this summer, as it was the opening vignette on This American Life's story about our broken patent system.The "company" has apparently been quiet for a while, but recently targeted a big fish: it's now suing Facebook for patent infringement for the mortal sin of letting people create photo albums online. It's also suing MySpace, as if that site still exists, and some others. Obviously, the main target is Facebook. Facebook has been hit with a bunch of patent suits, as has any tech company that has been moderately successful, and has tended to fight back. Hopefully that continues in this case.
Filed Under: patents, photo albums
Companies: facebook, fotomedia
