How Much Will You Pay for Friendster's Social Networking Patent?

By Dennis D. McDonald

Wendy Piersall is one of many bloggers commenting about Friendster's being granted a patent by the US Patent & Trademark Office for an implementation of social networking. The Red Herring article is here, and the full text of the patent is here.

The Friendster patent claim was originally filed in 2003. The patent was issued in late June of this year. There are many interesting views floating around in the blogosphere about this, for example:

• This is what happens when the patent examination process takes so long.
  
• This will stifle innovation.
• This will stimulate innovation.
• Friendster's fortunes are in decline so it will have to take up suing people to make money.
• Networking services like Linkedin will end up paying huge license fees and will have  to shut down free subscriptions.
• Some attorneys are going to make a lot of money over this.
  

I am amazed that sufficient "prior art" wasn't available to discredit at least some components of the original claim. Social networking concepts have been floating around for a long time, and various pieces of software to implement different aspects of social networking have also been around.

Maybe broader access to experts during the initial examination of prior art might have helped, as suggested by the experimental Peer to Patent Project and its (ironic?) application of some basic social networking concepts to the patent review process itself.

Click here to see all my patent related articles. 

Update on Friday, July 14, 2006 at 02:31PM by Dennis D. McDonald

Alison Bradley sent along this link to a BUSINESSWEEK ONLINE article that updates the above story:

http://businessweek.com/technology/content/jul2006/tc20060713_163728.htm

Comments

[Wendy Piersall]

I totally agree with you Dennis on the "prior art" point. It's difficult to believe that this was "never" done prior to 2002 - and with this new publicity, I'm sure that the required prior art will be uncovered and revealed. I guess we can only wait and see as to what new evidence will do to an already established patent... at least for now I think we can all certainly say that we will find new ways to network online if Friendster becomes our only option... now THAT'S a scary thought!

[The Everyday Economist]

I have to agree. It will be very difficult to enforce such patent, and economically unfeasible, especially for a company struggling the way friendster is.

Even wallmart agrees that sometimes it is cheaper to let theives go than to prosecute, and these are people that it is easy to prove are doing things wrong.

http://www.freakonomics.com/blog/2006/07/13/okay-to-steal-cheap-stuff-from-wal-mart/