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Category: WTO Sub-category: Intellectual Property
Document type: news
Yahoo has filed a lawsuit against Facebook, claiming that the social networking giant is infringing on 10 of its patents. Yahoo is suing Facebook over patents, just weeks before the social-networking heavyweight is due to cash in with its initial public offering of stock.
According to the lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, on 5th of March, 2012, Facebook's entire social networking model, is based on Yahoo's patented social networking technology.
Facebook spokesman said that Facebook learned of the lawsuit through the media. But it vowed to defend itself vigorously against what it called "puzzling actions" by Yahoo.
Facebook is also supposedly infringing on Yahoo's advertising, privacy, customization, social networking and messaging patents, and others.
Yahoo's advertising patents include four patents related to generating ads that relate to users (like Facebook's personalized ads which in turn include users' friends' info) and monitoring ad clicks for click fraud. Yahoo's privacy patents include two patents that allow users to customize how information is shared (like Facebook's privacy settings -- but perhaps a little more coherent).
Yahoo's customization patents include two patents related to customizing a Web experience based on users' needs and interests (like Facebook's "Like" button). Yahoo's social networking patent is about letting users customize information regarding them, join groups of people with similar interests, and share information. Yahoo's messaging patent engulfs e-mail, instant messaging, and "other messaging communication" services on social networking websites.
According to Yahoo, Facebook is infringing on patents related to messaging, news feed generation, social commenting, advertising display, preventing click fraud, and privacy controls.
The company is asking Facebook to pay triple damages and all of Yahoo's legal costs, and to "permanently enjoin" from further infringement of the patents in the suit.
The case in U.S. District Court, Northern District of California is Yahoo Inc. v. Facebook Inc., 12-cv-1212.
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