Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Mark Zuckerberg, Inventor

Posted by kdawson on from the seventeen-year-monopoly dept.

theodp writes "Move over, Thomas Edison. Here comes Mark Zuckerberg, inventor extraordinaire. Zuck's still waiting for that elusive first patent to be issued, but take a gander at the Facebook founder's patent application for Dynamically Generating a Privacy Summary to get an idea of what's in the works. After you check boxes on a form to indicate that 'Everyone from San Francisco, CA, Social Network Provider, and Harvard' can see your profile, Zuckerberg's 'invention' will miraculously display: 'People from San Francisco, CA, Social Network Provider, and Harvard can see your profile.' How dare Rolling Stone question his inventiveness!"

3 of 140 comments (clear)

  1. Edison is a pretty good comparison by MosesJones · · Score: 5, Interesting

    While I know its heresy to say it... Edison did just plain steal a lot of ideas and then pass them off as his own inventions. In fact the lack of global patent protection was a major reason for Edison becoming the person he did, in reality he lived off the inventions of others.

    Edison was a patent troll ;)

    --
    An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
  2. Re:Grapes Taste Bitter To You? by spun · · Score: 5, Interesting

    For Greenspan and the others to trash Zuckerberg's business acumen is the height of stupidity. Really? No one ever succeeded through dumb luck? Success is a guarantee of competence? I suppose the fact that you aren't a billionaire proves you are incompetent? Zuckerberg is a schmuck who lucked out, nothing more.
    --
    - None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
  3. Re:Grapes Taste Bitter To You? by ThinkComp · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Hi there,

    I don't know who you are, but I'm Aaron. So I thought I'd clarify something.

    The Rolling Stone article got a lot wrong unfortunately. In my book, which sadly the reporter did not read too closely, I referred to Mark as naive in reference to a specific event: his not knowing A) what Viacom was, B) that MTV was part of it (despite having ambitions to create the next MTV), and C) that Viacom purchased other companies. To me, that seemed to illustrate a certain level of naivete at the time. I'm sure Mark is more familiar with Viacom now, since they offered to buy Facebook long ago.

    Also, for the record, Mark is a paper billionaire, not a billionaire yet. I have to give him some credit for that, but when the methods of achieving that kind of success amount to theft and deception on a such a grand scale, it's hard to give too much credit.

    You're free to think whatever you want about me, of course, but I did want to make sure that people have their facts straight.

    Aaron