DailyTech - Yahoo Seeks Licensing Fees from Facebook, Could Lead to Patent Lawsuit

Submit News

Internet Yahoo Seeks Licensing Fees from Facebook, Could Lead to Patent Lawsuit
Tiffany Kaiser - February 28, 2012 10:37 AM

5 comment(s) - last by anandtech02148.. on Feb 28 at 9:03 PM

(Source: im.tech2.in.com)

There are about 10 to 20 of Yahoo's patents involved

Yahoo and Facebook could be the next Apple and Samsung. Let the patent wars begin.

Yahoo went after Facebook yesterday seeking licensing fees for use of its technology patents. More specifically, Yahoo claims that Facebook's privacy controls, messaging service, advertisements and news feed infringe on its technology and it is now demanding licensing fees. There were about 10 to 20 of Yahoo's patents involved.

"Yahoo has a responsibility to its shareholders, employees and other stakeholders to protect its intellectual property," said Yahoo.

The two companies and their respective representatives met yesterday to discuss the matter, yet no details regarding the talks have been released. However, Yahoo said it wouldn't think twice about taking Facebook to court if it needed to.

"Yahoo contacted us at the same time they called The New York Times, and so we haven't had the opportunity to fully evaluate their claims," said Facebook.

This is the first potential patent suit between Yahoo and Facebook. However, it's definitely not the first patent suit in the tech industry.

Through much of 2011, Apple and Samsung flung patent infringement lawsuits back and forth in regards to their respective mobile technologies. Apple started the war in April 2011 when it called Samsung an iPhone, iPad copycat. The two have since won and lost different battles throughout 2011 and early 2012, including Apple's victory in banning Samsung's Galaxy Tab 10.1 in both Australia and Germany. Samsung, however, was able to lift the ban in Australia.

Source: Reuters

Comments

Threshold

Username
Password
remember me

This article is over a month old, voting and posting comments is disabled

Think of the lawyers

By jeepga on 2/28/2012 2:13:39 PM , Rating: 5

At least our tech industry is creating jobs... for lawyers.

RE: Think of the lawyers

By wempa on 2/28/2012 4:51:16 PM , Rating: 2

Yup. I can't wait to see 10-20 patents with extremely obvious concepts that should never have been granted.

Parent

RE: Think of the lawyers

By someguy123 on 2/28/2012 5:24:22 PM , Rating: 4

Yahoo may have a good case here. They've patented the ability to communicate with another human being through symbols, which, taken alone or when combined, can relay ideas, thoughts, and emotions. Quite the scientific breakthrough.

Parent

Chapter 2 : The patent wars (tm)

By anactoraaron on 2/28/2012 6:15:12 PM , Rating: 2

quote:
More specifically, Yahoo claims that Facebook's privacy controls, messaging service, advertisements and news feed infringe on its technology

Privacy controls are used on most anything these days so having a 'privacy control settings' page can't possibly be a valid patent unless facebook uses the same colors/buttons/styling that Yahoo has. I don't see any similarities myself.

Then there's this matter of the messaging service... didn't AOL have AIM before yahoo had yahoo messenger? AIM debuted in 1997. Yahoo! Pager debuted in 1998. So wouldn't that make Yahoo an 'infringer' on some patent AOL likely has?

...having advertising on a web page is a patented tech?? Yahoo better shut down EVERY website then. They can't be serious here...

Sure yahoo, you have had a news feed patent just like the one facebook uses for people to keep tabs on their friends. And you have all these patents that facebook is 'infringing' on. Give me a break...

Since you don't really need to have legit patents to strong arm companies to pay licensing fees it looks like I'm off to patent the "like" and "comment" buttons. That will be $5 per person clicking on either, Facebook.

2012 the end of Facebook.

By anandtech02148 on 2/28/2012 9:03:35 PM , Rating: 2

Yahoo waited for Facebook to hoard up billions of investor's money before suing, genious or jooish.Facebook is nothing more than a sickening viral marketing, that's trying to stamp itself as an american cultural icon, no, real cultural icon flip burgers and are now selling greasy food worldwide. They build massive server farms so that these "socially conscious" yuppies can collect your browsing habits for marketing analytic firms to toy with. The american media use facebook as measuring stick to which a country should follow american values in freedom of press, take a look at my family picture and my dog.I'm so glad one american scum is going after another.

"We are going to continue to work with them to make sure they understand the reality of the Internet. A lot of these people don't have Ph.Ds, and they don't have a degree in computer science." -- RIM co-CEO Michael Lazaridis