YAHOO Is Suing FACEBOOK Over Patent Dispute!

YAHOO is Suing FACEBOOK Over a Patent Dispute.  FACEBOOK is just a few weeks before going completely public as a company.  Yahoo is stating that FACEBOOK has in a major way infringed on a total of 10 of their patents.  These patents cover the following technology areas: advertising, privacy controls and even social networking.  The YAHOO corporation wanted to sue FACEBOOK a month prior, knowing that it was using their patent ideas.  YAHOO just wanted FACEBOOK to enter into a licensing agreement with them, so they could legally use these patents.

FACEBOOK is (reportedly) rather disappointed about YAHOO’s decision to sue them.  YAHOO has been a long time business partner with the Social Media Giant FACEBOOK.  YAHOO has also greatly benefited from its business associations with FACEBOOK.  YAHOO connects many of its online services to FACEBOOK, which in turn has helped the company to gain users.  At the end of 2011 both companies had a vastly different number of owned patents.  At the end of 2011 FACEBOOK only had 56 patents in the United States.  On the other hand YAHOO had more than 1000 patents that pertain to their business technologies.

Similarly just before GOOGLE went public in 2004, YAHOO sued them over patent infringement as well.  YAHOO reportedly made hundreds of millions of dollars from a major settlement it made at that time with GOOGLE.  YAHOO stands by the validity of its lawsuit by explaining that it had invested a large amount of its financial resources in research and development as it related to the creation of its patents.  YAHOO Labs has invested more than $3.3 Billion in research and development.  This research and development has lead to other companies desiring to license these various patents.  The lawsuit was filed Monday in a federal court in San Jose.  Yahoo is basically contending that most of FACEBOOK’s Social Networking Technology is based on patents, and innovations initially created by YAHOO.  YAHOO is Suing FACEBOOK and we will see how this lawsuit turns out for both parties.

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Category: Tech Talk