Comments on: Friendster Gets Patent #2

By: Facebook Granted News Feed Patent – GigaOM

Facebook Granted News Feed Patent – GigaOM — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 01:52:43 +0000

[...] Facebook, which said in a statement it was “humbled” and “pleased” by the patent, may well choose not to enforce it. In fact, one of the more important social networking patents, from the early site Six Degrees, was bought by LinkedIn’s Reid Hoffman and Tribe.net/Zynga’s Mark Pincus explicitly to promote an open playing field for the sector by taking it away from people who might choose to enforce it in the courts. However Friendster, which was recently bought by a Malaysian company, made much of the fact that had obtained five U.S. social networking patents, at times using the patents to scare off the competition, at least in the press. [...]

By: Friendster Gets Another Social Networking Patent

Friendster Gets Another Social Networking Patent — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 06:11:33 +0000

[...] GigaOm] SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: "Friendster Gets Another Social Networking Patent", url: [...]

By: joe

joe — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 00:06:33 +0000

They sure are...they're the biggest social network in asia and the 3rd largest social network on the planet.

By: Idea Buyer

Idea Buyer — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 22:26:49 +0000

Is friendster even still around? They had the market with both hands and lost a sure grip. Looks like they're scrambling to pick up a few pieces for their angry investors.

By: Marc’s Voice » Blog Archive » Do we have to worry about the Friendster patents?

Tue, 20 Mar 2007 16:32:28 +0000

[...] I’ve had to advise more than one client on the validity, importance and threat of Friendster’s ’social networking patents’. [...]

By: Nav

Nav — Sun, 22 Oct 2006 14:07:32 +0000

when you are in social networking business, bad reputation could take away users and kill you.

I dont think friendster will take any legal actions directly but they have a weapon now and they will need to use it wisely.

By: Ashish

Ashish — Sun, 22 Oct 2006 07:28:09 +0000

I don't have time to read the patent, but I hope they are claiming the actual method of implementing such a system, not patenting the concept. If the patent office allowed them to claim the concept, that is simply ridiculous.

By: Steve P

Steve P — Fri, 20 Oct 2006 15:34:59 +0000

If you read the required elements of the claim, it is for a system where a second user provides content (e.g. a photo, video, etc) about a first user and if the second user isn’t a ‘friend’ of the first user (in terms of # of degrees), then the first user has to agree to the content being posted.

This is very close to what Facebook currently has.

By: David Kaspar

David Kaspar — Fri, 20 Oct 2006 14:21:50 +0000

@CoryS12

LinkedIn allows comments (appraisals) from other users that require approval by the user.

By: Kristaps Kaupe

Kristaps Kaupe — Fri, 20 Oct 2006 09:34:50 +0000

Friendster patentē…

Labi, ka Eiropā nav legalizēti progammatūras patenti. Friendster ieguvuši kārtējo. Šoreiz par bilžu augšupielādi sociālajos tīklos un tās sasaistīšanu ar savu draugu lokā esošu personu. Būtībā lieta, ko uz patenta pieteikšanas…

By: Geek And Poke

Geek And Poke — Thu, 19 Oct 2006 22:14:06 +0000

Good Luck Friendster…

As no one can live without Friendster, we hope it will get a bunch if money out of the social and community related patents (see Techdirt or GigaOM)…

By: pwb

pwb — Thu, 19 Oct 2006 20:29:03 +0000

Good luck with that!

By: CoryS

CoryS — Thu, 19 Oct 2006 16:19:15 +0000

OK, let's break down what claim 1 really says.

If you read the required elements of the claim, it is for a system where a second user provides content (e.g. a photo, video, etc) about a first user and if the second user isn't a 'friend' of the first user (in terms of # of degrees), then the first user has to agree to the content being posted.

I don't understand all the community elements of every social networking site, but of what I've seen, YouTube, MySpace, Flickr don't appear to do what is patented.

So this is a question for the reader group: What site does that? Specifically, who ASKS another user about content tagged to them, I can think of a few, but I'd be interested in the interpretation on how broad this claim really can be read.

By: Kempton's blog

Kempton's blog — Thu, 19 Oct 2006 05:48:27 +0000

Friendster and a really sick US patent system…

Just read from Liz that Friendster has been granted a second social networking patent. Liz said, “The patent basically covers uploading a photo and associating it with someone you are connected to on an online social network. Friendster also cla…

By: Kempton

Kempton — Thu, 19 Oct 2006 05:36:34 +0000

The US patent system is truly sick and needs to be reformed asap.

Not to defend the ridiculous of this situtation but patent office may simply be seriously lack of people to do a proper job. According to a former patent examiner, they only get about on average a day on a patent. See the length post (and the comment of this patent exminer) here,
http://kempton.ideasRevolution.com/2006/08/25/wikipedia-and-us-patent-trademark-office/#comments

By: Tech Headlines

Tech Headlines — Wed, 18 Oct 2006 22:57:55 +0000

Patent Office Really Wants To Be Friendster's Friend…

Over the summer, Friendster received a very broad patent for social networking, even though it seemed…