Frenzy over Facebook's US 7,809,805
In a piece titled Sorry Facebook, Google Already Had A Patent On Location-Based Social Networks , the San Francisco Chronicle actually lists claims of a patent in the text. The Facebook patent in question is US 7,809,805, which issued on 5 October 2010.
In the "Other References" section of the '805 patent, one finds:
U.S. Appl. No. 11/639,655, Mark Zuckerberg, Systems and Methods for Social Mapping, filed Dec. 14, 2006. cited by other .
U.S. Appl. No. 11/646,206, Aaron Sittig, Systems and Methods for Generating a Social Timeline, filed Dec. 26, 2006. cited by other .
U.S. Appl. No. 11/493,291, Mark Zuckerberg, Systems and Methods for Dynamically Generating a Privacy Summary, filed Jul. 25, 2006. cited by other .
U.S. Appl. No. 11/701,698, Jed Stremel, System and Method for Digital File Distribution, filed Feb. 2, 2007. cited by other .
U.S. Appl. No. 11/701,566, Jed Stremel, System and Method for Automatic Population of a Contact File with Contact Content and Expression Content, filed Feb. 2, 2007. cited by other .
U.S. Appl. No. 11/502,757, Andrew Bosworth, Systems and Methods for Generating Dynamic Relationship-Based Content Personalized for Members of a Web-Based Social Network, filed Aug. 11, 2006. cited by other .
U.S. Appl. No. 11/503,093, Andrew Bosworth, Systems and Methods for Measuring User Affinity in a Social Network Environment, filed Aug. 11, 2006. cited by other .
U.S. Appl. No. 11/503,037, Mark Zuckerberg, Systems and Methods for Providing Dynamically Selected Media Content to a User of an Electronic Device in a Social Network Environment, filed Aug. 11, 2006. cited by other .
U.S. Appl. No. 11/503,242, Mark Zuckerberg, System and Method for Dynamically Providing a News Feed About a User of a Social Network, filed Aug. 11, 2006. cited by other .
U.S. Appl. No. 11/499,093, Mark Zuckerberg, Systems and Methods for Dynamically Generating Segmented Community Flyers, filed Aug. 2, 2006. cited by other .
U.S. Appl. No. 11/580,210, Mark Zuckerberg, System and Method for Tagging Digital Media, filed Oct. 11, 2006. cited by other .
The first claim of the '805 is
A method of sharing locations of users participating in a social networking service at a geographic location, the method executed by a computer system and comprising:
receiving location information and status information from a mobile device of a first user of the social networking service, the location information representing a geographic location of the first user, the status information manually provided by the first user on an input module of the mobile device;
associating the location information with the status information of the first user in a database; and
sending the status information and the location information of the first user to a second user for display.
The first claim of the patent mentioned by the San Franciso Chronicle:
A computer-implemented method, comprising:
receiving, at a computer, a location of a first user who is associated with a first mobile device;
receiving a location of a second user who is associated with a second mobile device, and who is identified as a friend of the first user;
sending a first message to the first mobile device based on the proximity of the first user to the second user, wherein the first message identifies the location of the second user;
and sending a second message to the second mobile device based on the proximity of the second user to the first user, wherein the second message identifies the location of the first user.
**Techdirt wrote the following:
The problem was that the technology hadn't caught up yet: i.e., there weren't that many smartphones with GPS. Once that happened, it was natural to build more location-based services. So it seems particularly silly to patent something that was naturally going to come about once GPS in phones became more common... but that's how the patent system works.
Sorry, TechDirt, but the gist is that inventions typically precede innovation.
***Of problems with Facebook, see post Facebook's New Groups Feature Worries Some
The problems started on Thursday [7 Oct 2010], the day after Facebook revamped groups, giving users a way to compartmentalize their Facebook lives and post certain items to pre-designated groups of people. That's when technology blogger Michael Arrington, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, and Mahalo founder Jason Calacanis all found themselves added to a group called NAMBLA. It wasn't immediately clear what this page was set up for, but NAMBLA is an acronym for the completely unsavory North American Man/Boy Love Association. (For South Park fans, it refers to the National Association of Marlon Brando Look-Alikes).
Mahalo CEO Calacanis quickly fired an email to Zuckerberg saying that he was troubled to have been added to the group without being given the opportunity to opt in.
The problem inheres in what your "friend" on Facebook can do to you -->
How did Zuckerberg get added to NAMBLA then? That's all down to tech blogger Arrington. "I typed in his name and hit enter,' Arrington wrote on TechCrunch. "He's my Facebook friend, I therefore have the right to add him."
Arrington added that "as soon as Zuckerberg unsubscribed I lost the ability to add him to any further groups at all, another protection against spamming and pranks."
A Facebook spokeswoman confirmed that group members can only add their friends to the group. "If you have a friend that is adding you to groups you do not want to belong to, or they are behaving in a way that bothers you, you can tell them to stop doing it, block them or remove them as a friend -- and they will no longer ever have the ability to add you to any group," she wrote in an e-mail. "If you don't trust someone to look out for you when making these types of decisions on the site, we'd suggest that you shouldn't be friends on Facebook"
In the "Other References" section of the '805 patent, one finds:
U.S. Appl. No. 11/639,655, Mark Zuckerberg, Systems and Methods for Social Mapping, filed Dec. 14, 2006. cited by other .
U.S. Appl. No. 11/646,206, Aaron Sittig, Systems and Methods for Generating a Social Timeline, filed Dec. 26, 2006. cited by other .
U.S. Appl. No. 11/493,291, Mark Zuckerberg, Systems and Methods for Dynamically Generating a Privacy Summary, filed Jul. 25, 2006. cited by other .
U.S. Appl. No. 11/701,698, Jed Stremel, System and Method for Digital File Distribution, filed Feb. 2, 2007. cited by other .
U.S. Appl. No. 11/701,566, Jed Stremel, System and Method for Automatic Population of a Contact File with Contact Content and Expression Content, filed Feb. 2, 2007. cited by other .
U.S. Appl. No. 11/502,757, Andrew Bosworth, Systems and Methods for Generating Dynamic Relationship-Based Content Personalized for Members of a Web-Based Social Network, filed Aug. 11, 2006. cited by other .
U.S. Appl. No. 11/503,093, Andrew Bosworth, Systems and Methods for Measuring User Affinity in a Social Network Environment, filed Aug. 11, 2006. cited by other .
U.S. Appl. No. 11/503,037, Mark Zuckerberg, Systems and Methods for Providing Dynamically Selected Media Content to a User of an Electronic Device in a Social Network Environment, filed Aug. 11, 2006. cited by other .
U.S. Appl. No. 11/503,242, Mark Zuckerberg, System and Method for Dynamically Providing a News Feed About a User of a Social Network, filed Aug. 11, 2006. cited by other .
U.S. Appl. No. 11/499,093, Mark Zuckerberg, Systems and Methods for Dynamically Generating Segmented Community Flyers, filed Aug. 2, 2006. cited by other .
U.S. Appl. No. 11/580,210, Mark Zuckerberg, System and Method for Tagging Digital Media, filed Oct. 11, 2006. cited by other .
The first claim of the '805 is
A method of sharing locations of users participating in a social networking service at a geographic location, the method executed by a computer system and comprising:
receiving location information and status information from a mobile device of a first user of the social networking service, the location information representing a geographic location of the first user, the status information manually provided by the first user on an input module of the mobile device;
associating the location information with the status information of the first user in a database; and
sending the status information and the location information of the first user to a second user for display.
The first claim of the patent mentioned by the San Franciso Chronicle:
A computer-implemented method, comprising:
receiving, at a computer, a location of a first user who is associated with a first mobile device;
receiving a location of a second user who is associated with a second mobile device, and who is identified as a friend of the first user;
sending a first message to the first mobile device based on the proximity of the first user to the second user, wherein the first message identifies the location of the second user;
and sending a second message to the second mobile device based on the proximity of the second user to the first user, wherein the second message identifies the location of the first user.
**Techdirt wrote the following:
The problem was that the technology hadn't caught up yet: i.e., there weren't that many smartphones with GPS. Once that happened, it was natural to build more location-based services. So it seems particularly silly to patent something that was naturally going to come about once GPS in phones became more common... but that's how the patent system works.
Sorry, TechDirt, but the gist is that inventions typically precede innovation.
***Of problems with Facebook, see post Facebook's New Groups Feature Worries Some
The problems started on Thursday [7 Oct 2010], the day after Facebook revamped groups, giving users a way to compartmentalize their Facebook lives and post certain items to pre-designated groups of people. That's when technology blogger Michael Arrington, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, and Mahalo founder Jason Calacanis all found themselves added to a group called NAMBLA. It wasn't immediately clear what this page was set up for, but NAMBLA is an acronym for the completely unsavory North American Man/Boy Love Association. (For South Park fans, it refers to the National Association of Marlon Brando Look-Alikes).
Mahalo CEO Calacanis quickly fired an email to Zuckerberg saying that he was troubled to have been added to the group without being given the opportunity to opt in.
The problem inheres in what your "friend" on Facebook can do to you -->
How did Zuckerberg get added to NAMBLA then? That's all down to tech blogger Arrington. "I typed in his name and hit enter,' Arrington wrote on TechCrunch. "He's my Facebook friend, I therefore have the right to add him."
Arrington added that "as soon as Zuckerberg unsubscribed I lost the ability to add him to any further groups at all, another protection against spamming and pranks."
A Facebook spokeswoman confirmed that group members can only add their friends to the group. "If you have a friend that is adding you to groups you do not want to belong to, or they are behaving in a way that bothers you, you can tell them to stop doing it, block them or remove them as a friend -- and they will no longer ever have the ability to add you to any group," she wrote in an e-mail. "If you don't trust someone to look out for you when making these types of decisions on the site, we'd suggest that you shouldn't be friends on Facebook"
posted by Lawrence B. Ebert at 4:35 AM
1 Comments:
I hope that Facebook will maintain a fairly defensive stance and won't get terribly aggressive on the patent litigation front. Indeed, there's nothing wrong with engaging in some form of patent enforcement, in the event of infringement of your IP by others. But some (e.g., Microsoft) seem to have taken it to an extreme degree.
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