Tuscaloosa paper weighs in against Friendster patent

Dwayne Fatherree of The Tuscaloosa News on the Friendster patent:

First, it makes it possible for Friendster’s management, if they wanted to end it all in a flash of legal glory, to file suit against any one or all of the social networking sites on the Web.

Second, it shows that anyone can file a patent application for almost anything and have it approved, regardless of how ludicrous the claim may be.

Fatherree argues a lack of priority by Friendster:

Friendster isn’t the first site to think about patenting the idea for a social networking site. SixDegrees.com filed for and received a patent on social networking several years ago. That didn’t help the company much. It went under and was sold, along with the patent that it held.

Also:

Patenting social networking is like patenting the corner barbershop. Unless there is some groundbreaking technology involved, like telekinetic information exchange or electron-based spiritual bonding, then the new patent has very little sparkle. It is merely a ton of paperwork and effort spent quantifying a different way of searching a database.