Posts Tagged ‘patents’

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Facebook Acquires AOL Patents From Microsoft (paidContent)
Facebook announced today that it will pay $550 million to Microsoft for the right to 650 patents and patent applications. Microsoft acquired those patents and hundreds of others in a deal with AOL earlier this month. The New York Times / Bits The deal allows Facebook to bulk up its intellectual property portfolio ahead of the social networking company’s initial public offering, expected next month, and it is a further sign of the growing importance of stockpiling patents in the arsenal of any big technology company. AllFacebook Facebook is currently embroiled in a controversial patent-infringement lawsuit filed by Yahoo in March. Meanwhile, last September, AOL, Yahoo and Microsoft joined forces to challenge Facebook on the online display advertising revenue front. PandoDaily Another thing is astounding about this story: The ever-bumbling AOL has actually done something smarter than Yahoo, the purple dinosaur. AOL sold and licensed its patents for a cash injection of more than $1 billion. Yahoo wanted money too, but it chose to use its patents to extort that kind of cash out of Facebook via a conveniently timed lawsuit — with zero attempt at negotiations before hand. Read more

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Twitter Promotes Patent Peace with Innovator’s Agreement (paidContent)
In a first among major tech companies, Twitter is taking steps to ensure that its patents don’t become fuel for future intellectual property wars. Twitter Blog It is a commitment from Twitter to our employees that patents can only be used for defensive purposes. We will not use the patents from employees’ inventions in offensive litigation without their permission. parislemon Hopefully other startups large and small will follow Twitter’s lead here. It would be really excellent if larger companies (*cough* Yahoo *cough*) did as well, but it’s hard to see that happening given the current state of things. This is a movement that will have to start from the ground up. AllTwitter Those “in the know” when it comes to patent law seem to approve. VentureBeat The Innovator’s Patent Agreement will take effect later this year; you can read the whole thing on GitHub. Read more

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Twitter Admits ‘Unfollowing Bug’ (The Telegraph)
The microblogging company has now admitted that there is a problem. A Twitter spokesman said: “This is a bug, and our team is working to fix it.” The bug is causing Twitter users to randomly unfollow people without account holders’ prior consent or knowledge. Twitter has advised affected people to visit its support page and go to fellow tweeters’ profile pages to check whether they are still following them or not. Cnet The site has finally acknowledged a glitch that’s causing people you follow to appear as if they’ve been unfollowed. Twitter is working on a fix but insists the bug only makes it seem like you’re no longer following someone. Clicking on the user’s actual profile page can confirm that you’re still a follower. Mashable Many Twitter users have long complained about the unfollowing problem, but it wasn’t officially acknowledged by the company until Wednesday. Read more

By now most of us are familiar with the concept of social networking. Basically, social networking is an agreement between two people to share information with each other, and the means for sharing is by one entering information to be shared in an application, with that information consolidated on one web page that is commonly called a profile. What if a smartphone is the tool for sharing information rather than software like Facebook and Myspace?
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Mobile credit card payment startup Square, whose card reading service works with a nifty magnetic card reader that plus into a mobile device’s headphone jack, is missing a very important piece: The patent for the hardware.

Square, Inc. and founder Jim McKelvey filed a complaint against Robert Morley, Jr., an associate professor of electrical engineering at Washington University, claiming that he neglected to list McKelvey as co-inventor of the device.

According to the story told McKelvey, a glass artist and entrepreneur, he came up with the idea for a mobile card reader in 2009 after losing a sale because he couldn’t accept credit card payments. He then teamed up with friend and Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey, and they decided to use a mobile phone’s headphone jack as a way of interfacing with a card reading device. McKelvey then turned to friend Morley to help design the prototype hardware.

The three reportedly had discussed obtaining a patent once the prototype was finished, but Morley filed solo in June 2009, and a patent in his name for the card reader device was granted on October 12, 2010.   Read more

What’s the next logical step for Apple’s iTunes? Why selling concert tickets of course, and a new patent filing by Apple referring a system called “Concert Ticket +” directly addresses that step.
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Have you ever promoted a website via a tweet or a Facebook status update? If Aardvark’s latest patent application for “Online Word-of-Mouth Marketing of a Web Service Using Personalized Invitations via a Status Messaging Service” is granted, you may soon be prevented from building such promotional features into your own website.
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Hothand Inc. has been awarded a broad patent, covering not just location services but also mobile advertising. It’s a patent that could affect mobile platforms widely, and not just for ad networks such as Google’s AdMob or the one Apple is rumored to be revealing soon, possibly today.
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If you’re a fan of Apple’s 3D-visual “cover flow” method of browsing computer files, then you might be happy to know that a US patent was published for a similar method of browsing social network contacts on an iPhone. The coverflow ability already exists for viewing album covers in iTunes on all platforms, including iPhones and iPod Touches. It also exists on Mac computers in the Finder app, for viewing documents, images, and videos.
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The USPTO just granted Apple a patent for iGroups, a mobile social networking application that could have immense value in this arena, especially if the relevant features are released as part of a public API for the company’s mobile devices – namely iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad. Social Times takes a look at some of this patent’s details, followed by a list of potential mobile social networking uses.
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