Welcome!

Open Web Authors: Keith Mayer, Adrian Bridgwater, RealWire News Distribution, Louis Nauges, Maureen O'Gara

Related Topics: Web 2.0, XML, SOA & WOA, Open Web

Web 2.0: Article

Facebook Sues Yahoo Down to Its Drawers

It wants the court to rule Yahoo’s broad, if not sometimes vague, fundamental patents invalid
By Maureen O'Gara
Article Rating:
April 4, 2012 07:10 AM EDT
Reads:
 2,157

Facebook has countered Yahoo's patent infringement claims with some patent infringement claims of its own.

It's countersuing the stricken old Internet queen in federal court in Silicon Valley, charging it with infringing 10 of its patents.

According to the New York Times it's enough to cover 80% of Yahoo's revenues last year. Including display advertising, content personalization and photo sharing, that adds up to $4 billion.

Facebook, whose users increased Yahoo's traffic by 300% in Q4, is ticked that Yahoo would turn on it and bring suit just before it IPOs at a gargantuan $100 billion valuation.

It wants the court to rule Yahoo's broad, if not sometimes vague, fundamental patents invalid. (Unfortunately, perhaps, for Facebook they're not all vague.) And of course it's demanding damages.

Yahoo allegedly treads on Facebook patents relating to the social network's newsfeed and digital media tagging.

It's unclear if Facebook is using patents it got recently from IBM.

There are copies of the suit in the Times, VentureBeat and All Things Digital.

Yahoo could reportedly lay off 25% of its people Wednesday morning.

Published April 4, 2012 – Reads 2,157
Copyright © 2012 SYS-CON Media, Inc. — All Rights Reserved.
Syndicated stories and blog feeds, all rights reserved by the author.

More Stories By Maureen O'Gara

Maureen O'Gara the most read technology reporter for the past 20 years, is the Cloud Computing and Virtualization News Desk editor of SYS-CON Media. She is the publisher of famous "Billygrams" and the editor-in-chief of "Client/Server News" for more than a decade. One of the most respected technology reporters in the business, Maureen can be reached by email at maureen(at)sys-con.com or paperboy(at)g2news.com, and by phone at 516 759-7025. Twitter: @MaureenOGara

Comments (0)

Share your thoughts on this story.

Add your comment
You must be signed in to add a comment. Sign-in | Register

In accordance with our Comment Policy, we encourage comments that are on topic, relevant and to-the-point. We will remove comments that include profanity, personal attacks, racial slurs, threats of violence, or other inappropriate material that violates our Terms and Conditions, and will block users who make repeated violations. We ask all readers to expect diversity of opinion and to treat one another with dignity and respect.