Facebook Sued Over Patent On Distributing Personal Info On A Network
from the no,-really dept
As you probably know by now, as a company gets bigger and more successful it means that they will certainly be sued for patent infringement. This isn't because they somehow "took" or "copied" someone else's ideas. But because there are so many ridiculous and overly broad patents out there that some jealous patent holder will seek to make some easy money with a lawsuit against a much more successful company. Facebook is already facing a few such lawsuits, including one where it's been ordered to reveal its entire source code.The latest such lawsuit involves a tiny company, WhoGlue, who holds a patent 7,246,164 on "Distributed personal relationship information management system and methods." And, of course, WhoGlue has decided that Facebook infringes and needs to pay up. There are all sorts of problems with this kind of lawsuit. You have a patent on an obvious concept, that Facebook clearly developed independently (as have many others). And now Facebook will need to go spend on a legal defense. What a waste of resources.
Once again, we see that those who can't compete, sue.
Filed Under: patents, social networks
Companies: facebook, whoglue
