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Facebook Just Patented The Feed – What Does That Mean For Everyone That Uses Them?
There are times when you file a patent that you might never use and forget about it. Then there are times you file a patent and later have granted at the best possible time. Facebook is at just such a moment it seems with the granting of US patent number 7,669,123.
Facebook in 2006 filed for a patent covering ‘the feed,’ as it is known among the tech world. That patent was just granted. Something to note, Facebook filed this before feeds were in vogue, before some social darlings were even born. Meaning: some people seem to stepping on Facebook’s toes in a serious, legal way.
They just patented the damn news feed. It is hard to get around that. To eliminate possible confusion, this is the main claim on the patent (read the full patent here):
A method for displaying a news feed in a social network environment, the method comprising: monitoring a plurality of activities in a social network environment; storing the plurality of activities in a database; generating a plurality of news items regarding one or more of the activities, wherein one or more of the news items is for presentation to one or more viewing users and relates to an activity that was performed by another user; attaching a link associated with at least one of the activities of another user to at least one of the plurality of news items where the link enables a viewing user to participate in the same activity as the another user; limiting access to the plurality of news items to a set of viewing users; and displaying a news feed comprising two or more of the plurality of news items to at least one viewing user of the predetermined set of viewing users. [Emphasis TNW]
Yes, you read all that correctly. Yes, the patent has been granted. And yes, it seems that many people are in breach of this patent.
Now we are not legal minds here at The Next Web, so we are not going to pass judgement on what this may or may not mean, but we think that it at least seems clear. Given the strength of the main (granted) claim and its corollaries (in a minute), Facebook now appears to have a gigantic legal cudgel to hit other social companies with.
What else does the patent say? Here are some of the claimed methods for the first claim:
- The method of claim 1, wherein the plurality of activities are selected according to an affinity determined for the viewing user.
- The method of claim 1, wherein at least one informational link comprises a dropdown menu.
- The method of claim 1, further comprising displaying advertising with the plurality of news items.
- The method of claim 1, further comprising: monitoring an interaction of the viewing user with the at least one of the plurality of news items; and utilizing the interaction to select advertising for display to the viewing user.
- The method of claim 1, further comprising searching the one or more news items for a predetermined character string.
And it goes on. The 16th claim of the patent is huge, stating:
A system for displaying a news feed comprising: a social network environment; a module configured to monitor a plurality of activities in a social network environment; a storage medium for storing the plurality of activities in a database; a module configured to generate a plurality of news items regarding one or more of the activities, wherein one or more of the news items is for presentation to one or more viewing users and relates to an activity that was performed by another user; a link component configured to attach a link associated with at least one of the activities of another user to at least one of the plurality of news items where the link enables a viewing user to participate in the same activity as the another user; a privacy component configured to limit access to the plurality of news items to a set of viewing users; and a media generator configured to display a news feed comprising two or more of the plurality of news items to at least one viewing user of the predetermined set of viewing users. [Emphasis TNW]
In the next few weeks we are going to find out just what Facebook thinks they can claim with this patent, what other companies feel that they can defend against, and how aggressive Facebook is going to be to police it.
Sure, Facebook was the biggest social network, but yesterday it did not have the patent to the most popular way to display content inside of a social network.
This is probably going to get ugly.
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Discussion - 61 Comments/Pingbacks RSS feed for comments on this post
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I'm going to patent 'the blog.'
Or maybe 'orange slice'
-removing a segment of orange using a knife.
I am baffled by this, how can a patent be acquired for something so general and heavily used? I agree with David's comment in the sense that it makes about as much sense as patenting 'the blog' or 'orange slice'. Is Facebook doing this in an attempt to shut down this type of 'feature' on other social networks or something else entirely? Anyone have thoughts on what they are up to?
hahahah – that's a very funny comment!
Looks like Facebook has finally found a way to kill Twitter
A news feed for a social networking site could also include Twitter. Twitter is a social network per say. Just a more simplified version of one. Couldn't Facebook remove Twitter all together?
This will be interesting, I can't see how they can acquire such a general term. Will every newsfeed now require Facebook Connect functionality or will Facebook let the bears loose?!
Isnt there a Russian company that claimed the rights for this smiley combo “:-)”
Hope they wont sue me now!
This seems exactly like the kodak patent. Kodak patented a way to view photos taken on a screen which is commonplace and a required feature on every camera device. Almost all camera companies pay some royalty to Kodak for use of this technology. This doesn't seem odd to me as five years ago a newsfeed was not a common item and social media was barely beginning. I think it is smart of Facebook to do this and will ensure their longevity in the marketplace.
This seems exactly like the kodak patent. Kodak patented a way to view photos taken on a screen which is commonplace and a required feature on every camera device. Almost all camera companies pay some royalty to Kodak for use of this technology. This doesn't seem odd to me as five years ago a newsfeed was not a common item and social media was barely beginning. I think it is smart of Facebook to do this and will ensure their longevity in the marketplace
But hasn't LiveJournal been doing this on their friends page feature way longer than Facebook has existed? Like since the last century?
The US legal system must be very corrupt to accept a patent like this. Btw, twitter was first (in public), right?
Go for the orange slice. Because the blog seems to be covered by Facebook's patent.
Go for the orange slice. Because the blog seems to be covered by Facebook's patent.
Let us know when they file an international (or Swedish) patent! Until then I'm not very concerned..
I would like to read the definition of “Social Network Environment”….
i definitely think there is something broken in the US patent system
this fails the non-obviousness test. it's a non-issue and other companies can easily defend against any claim that facebook might try to bring against them with respect to “the feed”. facebook can go pound “the sand” over this.
“'Non-obviousness' is the term used in US patent law to describe one of the requirements that an invention must meet to qualify for patentability, codified in 35 U.S.C. §103. One of the main requirements of patentability is that the invention being patented is not obvious, meaning that a 'person having ordinary skill in the art' would not know how to solve the problem at which the invention is directed by using exactly the same mechanism. The Graham Factors, shown below, are used by courts to determine if the claimed invention is nonobvious.”
quoted section from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inventive_step_and...
It doesn't matter really – there's prior art that exists before Facebook was founded.
Uh? 5 years ago news feeds WAS a common item – they were called RSS or Atom-feeds. Or for that matter, a Usenet-update (After Google took over Dejanews) – I guess all of these could be covered by the Facebook patent.
This is ridiculous – but lets wait and see what Facebook is gonna do with it before we unleash hell
They wont. The crazy software patent system is only insanely applied in US and Japan, if I remeber well. It does NOT do nothig to other countries…
But they could still file for any patent anywhere, right? The difference would be in the approval process.. right?
better take this “feed” of comments down… and make sure they dont have a patent on the “like” button.
bloggers and newspapersites use feeds all the time….it's all ower the web…what are thy gonna do, sue everybody? ..what about google's new twitter like ideá .. .. do you really wanna fight google in a legal battle?
bloggers and newspapersites use feeds all the time….it's all ower the web…what are thy gonna do, sue everybody? ..what about google's new twitter like ideá .. .. do you really wanna fight google in a legal battle?
Umm, slashdot's “firehose” anyone?
This is som f*d up s*t. I mean every web protal has a news feed in it.
I work with a Learning Management System myself. When a couple of hundred (or so) LMSs existed someone who definetly not was the inventor of LMSs managed to get a patent of basically putting e-learning courses in a portal environment. We're not affected ourselfs, since we operate on markets without software patents, but it shows the absurdidy of them. In this case i expect our function “the following courses have been added or updated since your last login” to be illegal.
Google or Microsoft (or both) could tie this up in court until FB doesn't have a penny left in the coffer. Fat chance of enforcing it.
Google or Microsoft (or both) could tie this up in court until FB doesn't have a penny left in the coffer. Fat chance of enforcing it.
Really curious to see what they plan with all this. Every time I use the “feed” word (ups) I am supposed to pay Facebook sth? Come on…
sounds greedy to me..
This i probably the biggest shit ever filed under a patent. Really have to hope they let dust set on it. Else I will claim to have invented “one photographic image consequently following the other on click” = gallery.
Notice that the patent says “social network”. Newspapers and blogs are not “social networks”, nor are they “displaying a news feed comprising two or more of the plurality of news items to at least one viewing user of the predetermined set of viewing users” (meaning that they reader in advance have selected what users to see events/news from.
IANAL, but it seems to only be relevant where the user can select one or more users to follow, and only see news items/events/activities from those users.
If you have a blog where the readers in advance have to select what other users they want to see comments from, then it might have applied, but a blog is not a socual network.
What's up with reading comprehension these days?
Notice that the patent says “social network”. Newspapers and blogs are not “social networks”, nor are they “displaying a news feed comprising two or more of the plurality of news items to at least one viewing user of the predetermined set of viewing users” (meaning that they reader in advance have selected what users to see events/news from.
IANAL, but it seems to only be relevant where the user can select one or more users to follow, and only see news items/events/activities from those users.
If you have a blog where the readers in advance have to select what other users they want to see comments from, then it might have applied, but a blog is not a socual network.
What's up with reading comprehension these days?
But a generic web portal or even a Learning Management System is not a “social network”.
I think many commenters only read “the feed” and not the actual description.
From what I understand it is NOT a patent on news feeds in general, but a patent of the feed in Facebook, where the user/viewer will see “a plurality” (more than one) of event/news items from other pre-selected users (your friends, the people you follow).
I could say something about Learning Management System and reading comprehension training… >:-)=
But I won't.
But a generic web portal or even a Learning Management System is not a “social network”.
I think many commenters only read “the feed” and not the actual description.
From what I understand it is NOT a patent on news feeds in general, but a patent of the feed in Facebook, where the user/viewer will see “a plurality” (more than one) of event/news items from other pre-selected users (your friends, the people you follow).
I could say something about Learning Management System and reading comprehension training… >:-)=
But I won't.
But a generic web portal or even a Learning Management System is not a “social network”.
I think many commenters only read “the feed” and not the actual description.
From what I understand it is NOT a patent on news feeds in general, but a patent of the feed in Facebook, where the user/viewer will see “a plurality” (more than one) of event/news items from other pre-selected users (your friends, the people you follow).
I could say something about Learning Management System and reading comprehension training… >:-)=
But I won't.
Mybe, but then Budwiser (us-company) has patented the name “Budwiser” even though the original beer from slovakia has existed for i-don't-know-how-many-decades longer than that disgusting us-stuff and was named after the plce it is produced in.
this is a strange world we live in!
This article is very deceptive, perhaps not intentionally.
The patent is not for “the feed”. It is for the very specific implementation of feeds in Facebook, including how they filter all data down to just the ones you are interested, and even the UI elements used.
Nobodoy else does it in as complex a manner as Facebook, and I do not think their algorithms or performance could be matched by the average software dev. So the granting of the patent looks just fine to me. I see zero impact that it would have on anybody else's site.
Max, thank you for bringing a voice of sanity to this blather. I'm a patent agent and what everyone seems to be missing here is that, based on this patent, Facebook could only sue for patent infringement some third party whose newsfeed system incorporated EVERY element listed in the claims. There's plenty of room for getting around these claims.
This could indeed get very ugly… I can see many social networking sites being forced to pay tribute to Facebook in the near future. Or, at the very least, the lawyers will love this!
The claims in general seem so general, it's amazing to me that there isn't prior work in these areas that would show that others had already implemented similar systems.
You can't patent a name. You can trademark it, though. Can't patent an idea either. You can only patent an invention, the implementation of an idea.
And since there can be many ways to implement the same idea, there can be many patents for all those ways.
The trouble is when a patent is too broad or vague in it's filed description that it could be mistaken for something that the actual implementation isn't, and used to step on the rights of those that have the same idea but do things differently…a different implementation, just as worthy of protection.
Just imagine that Coca Cola had filed a patent on the formula for their most famous product as “carbonated water with flavoring and sweetener added” how that would have been so vague and broad that it would have killed innovation in the soft drink industry and used against any company that created a carbonated beverage, no matter how unique and different from Coca Cola it is.
Or if someone patented their unique implementation of the wheel as “a round disk with a hole in the middle”. Imagine what that would have done to the music industry, in light of both vinyl records and CD's also fitting that description, as well as faucet washers, butter cookies, donuts, toilet seats, and tons of other things.
“Now we are not legal minds here at The Next Web, so we are not going to pass judgement on what this may or may not mean, but we think that it at least seems clear.”
The above statement is all one really needs to read here.
my two cents, here:
http://answerguy.com/2010/02/25/patents-must-be...
Jeff Yablon
President & CEO
Answer Guy and Virtual VIP Business Change Coaching and Virtual Assistant Services
Answer Guy and Virtual VIP on Twitter
Only in America…ur patent and law systems are messed up – corrupted – for real.
Facebook has blocked linking to this article from the feed. Guess they're scared of something in here.
Hm, now I can post the long url to this article on my feed, but I can't post my bit.ly link: http://bit.ly/9N2YSG to it.. Weird?
my two cents, here:
http://answerguy.com/2010/02/25/patents-must-be...
Jeff Yablon
President & CEO
Answer Guy and Virtual VIP Business Change Coaching and Virtual Assistant Services
Answer Guy and Virtual VIP on Twitter
This is what happens when we have lawyers working in the patent office, rather than anybody who is in the technical field. Patents for software techniques should never(generalizing) be allowed – they should be for hardware only. Copyrights can take care of software. Essentially they have been granted a patent for a specially built database query? C'mon, thats insane and has got to stop.