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Facebook patents user news feed
,----[ Quote ]
| Facebook has been awarded a patent on
| displaying news feeds of users' activities
| â creating an interwebs stir that basic
| social network functionality could soon
| fall prey to Facebook IP rights.
|
| The US patent - awarded February 23 -
| pertains to "dynamically providing a news
| feed about a user of a social network." For
| example: "Susie has added a photo to her
| gallery," or "Johnny joined the Dolphin Sea
| Mammal Lovers Anonymous Group."
`----
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/02/26/facebook_patents_news_feed/
Facebook patents the 'news feed' - but was it really first?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2010/feb/26/facebook-patent
Does Facebook's Newsfeed Patent Threaten Social Media?
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| Venture capitalist and blogger Fred Wilson
| decried the patent by arguing that the U.S.
| Patent and Trade Office should stop
| awarding software rights altogether.
| "Software patents make no sense. Like
| music, art, and other creative pursuits,
| software is almost always derivative work.
| There is not a chance in hell that Facebook
| invented this idea," Wilson wrote.
`----
http://www.pcworld.com/article/190281/does_facebooks_newsfeed_patent_threaten_social_media.html
Facebook Gets Patent On News Feeds
http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/2010/02/26/facebook-gets-patent-on-news-feeds
A New Way to Buy and Sell Ideas
,----[ Quote ]
| Setting aside Myhrvold's colorful pedigree,
| his company's approach has long drawn fire,
| with critics dubbing it "Intellectual
| Vultures."
|
| Amar BhidÃ, author of The Venturesome
| Economy, is a high profile critic of
| Myhrvold's vision. Invention, to him, is
| akin to writing a book: what if authors had
| to buy licensing rights for every idea they
| cited, instead of simply giving credit in
| the footnotes? Many of the best new
| products, he argues, are combinations of
| countless ideas, some patentable, some not.
|
| A patent attorney writing under the
| pseudonym "Sawyer" laments:
|
| "Mr. Myhrvold wants to create an entire
| economic category based on payments to
| entities that don't build, produce,
| sell, etc, any products, or create
| anything of value (i.e., that don't
| innovate, at least in any useful way
| that advances human progress), in
| exchange for not being sued on
| exclusionary patent rights."
|
| [...]
|
| Myhrvold assures us the exact opposite will
| occur: that his system will create a
| vigorous market in IP rights and solve an
| epidemic of under-invention. Myhrvold
| confidently predicts that competition
| between investment funds to buy
| intellectual property from inventors,
| bundle it, and sell it to buyers who know
| how to exploit it will support increased
| output from innovators. But in his effort
| to encourage invention, he might be single-
| handedly facilitating the unholy genesis of
| a huge new class of parasitic middlemen.
`----
http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2010/02/a-new-way-to-buy-and-sell-ideas/36742/
More Patent Nonsense
,----[ Quote ]
| Software patents make no sense. Like music,
| art, and other creative pursuits, software
| is almost always derivative work. There is
| not a chance in hell that Facebook invented
| this idea. I am certain there have been
| social news feeds around for at least a
| decade or more. I am not going to spend the
| time finding all the prior art, but I am
| sure there are patent lawyers doing that
| already for various social networks who are
| now potential subjects of patent litigation
| from Facebook.
`----
http://www.thestandard.com/news/2010/02/26/more-patent-nonsense
Recent:
Facebook Huddles with Patent Vampire
,----[ Quote ]
| After leaving Microsoft, Myhrvold went into the patent business. His
| Intellectual Ventures works like this: Buy up patents, then use them to
| bludgeon large tech companies into forking over fees or making investments in
| Intellectual Ventures.
|
| In the course of his short career, Zuckerberg, as a tipster reminded us, has
| accumulated a nice array of patents. They're related, as you might guess, to
| social networking and digital media. Could he use them against his rivals via
| Myhrvold, raising some money for Facebook in the process?
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http://gawker.com/5313640/facebook-huddles-with-patent-vampire
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