Facebook counterclaim accuses Yahoo of infringing 10 patents | Hacker News Reader

Facebook counterclaim accuses Yahoo of infringing 10 patents

arstechnica.com

58 pointsevo_926 comments

"generating a feed of stories personalized for members of a social network" "tagging digital media" "methods for enabling users to fetch items"

hahahaha... I can't help but chuckle when reading these. Why don't they own the patents for "displaying discrete items of information in a linear fashion", "entering personal information into a computer using a hand operated alphabet device" and "methods for communicating one's emotional state electronically to friends and acquaintances"? Hmm... that last one might actually work.

Of course facebook has little choice but to countersue, but I'll be happy when the ongoing three ring patent circus (or is it freakshow?) is put to rest.

  > Hmm... that last one might actually work.

LiveJournal would be a huge corpus of prior art from the pre-Facebook days.

... and patent law continues to be nothing more than an employment program for lawyers, and to impede innovation.

I had an in depth discussion about patent trolling with a friend's father who is a very prominent lawyer, albeit not in patent law. Regardless, I mentioned how ridiculous it has become and gave a couple examples (Honeywell vs Nest, Yahoo vs Facebook, Arrival Star vs every poor city). He agreed but pointed out that there's no reason to be upset with the lawyers. It's congress who's allowing them to get away with it. Subconsciously I knew this, but it's hard not to be angry with the lawyers who are taking advantage of it.

How are lawyers "taking advantage of it"? Their clients tell them to sue, they sue.

>How are lawyers "taking advantage of it"?

I'll search for the link, but I recall reading an article where a group of lawyers contacted companies who they believe had their patents infringed upon and offered their services to them.

There are companies Not necessarily law firms, who provide services on analyzing patents and submitting a list potential candidates that can be sued.

>Subconsciously I knew this

I have to disagree with this. Just because the law allows something doesn't make it acceptable to do so on any other level. (Ethically, morally, being-a-decent-human-ly, what have you.)

The law should be the final, last resort "stop" on behavior. If you rely on the legal system to decide what's okay and what isn't, you'll end up being a pretty horrible person. We shouldn't allow companies to say "But it's legal" as a defense to any bad behavior.

I usually try to look for practical solutions for real problems instead of trying to figure out "who to blame". Technically, both lawyers and congress are guilty. But in practice, from our point of view, it's easier to change congress by trying to elect better candidates and calling your representative, than it is to try to convince every lawyer that exists to abandon greed.

So I don't disagree with you, that lawyers are also to blame. But I'd argue that our energy is better spent focused on congress.

I agree in principle, but the cynic in me feels the need to point out that you might want to consider what profession the majority of senators and congressmen were in before they took office.

He agreed but pointed out that there's no reason to be upset with the lawyers. It's congress who's allowing them to get away with it.

There's more than enough blame to go around. The law profession should take more responsibility for what it's involved in.

Lawyers don't sue companies. Companies sue companies.

I don't blame the lawyers and I assumed that most other people blamed the lawyers. I blame the law.

When your value proposition is "we won't sue you", you've lost your competitive advantage in innovation. Note that this also applies to the RIAA/MPAA.

I just picture Facebook execs in the scarface tone of voice, "you wanna fuck with me, huh?"

Although two wrongs don't make a right, I'm glad that Facebook took this line of action. Taking a counter-attack/offensive stance and putting Yahoo on the defensive will hopefully wake them up to the stupidity of their actions.

I think Facebook should just pull their access to the FB API. Y! already stated how helpful it was for their news and then they sued FB. If they don't like it then don't use it.

It seems to me that Yahoo has bitten off more than it can chew. I bet Facebook can out-lawyer them at this stage.

Yes, they can, if not in staff in tenacity.

Why did Yahoo think they can attack facebook without facebook countersuing?

Did management gone bonker?

IANAL, but I suppose that, since patent claims are extremely subjective to one judge's personal opinion. That objectivity is of very little concern, the results are very unpredictable. There's very little precedence to most software patent suits. So even something that seem objectively ridiculous, could turn out to be a profitable attempt if you get lucky.

So in short, they know they can get lucky, measure costs and potential benefits, and assume the risk is worth it. Maybe if it seem unlikely to win. A dying company doesn't have much to lose. And in the odd occasion that luck is in their favor. They could win a huge load of money.

I don't think they were expecting to win in court. For the number of patent suits that are brought, the number that are seen through to a judgment is really quite small. I can't find the link at the moment, but there was a story that Yahoo did essentially the same thing to Google before their IPO. The suit was dropped in exchange for Yahoo getting some of Google's pre-IPO stock. I'd guess the same thing is going on here. The suit/counter-suit is likely nothing more than a trumped up "we want some of your stock" negotiation.

Apparently, Facebook recently bought 750 patents from IBM (http://www.cnn.com/2012/03/23/tech/social-media/facebook-ibm...).

This is probably not unrelated.

I've heard the idea that economically we are in an IP investment bubble at the moment due to the current IP arms race that is going on over smartphones and associated internet/tech bobbins.

This got me thinking that if we are in a bubble, what would an IP investment crash look like? And how would it be likely to start?

Let's hope this doesn't get out of hand... remember this?

http://assets.fiercemarkets.com/files/wireless/fierceimages/...

Frankly, at this point the only viable solution appears for the situation to truly spiral out of control, with glaringly obvious detrimental effects on segments of the economy.

Only then, it seems, will legislators be spurred to take action to curb this inane practice.

Patents are killing the damn industry. Sigh.

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