Slashdot Mirror
Facebook Ordered To Turn Over Source Code
consonant writes "A Delaware District Court judge has ordered Facebook to turn over ALL its source code to Leader Technologies, who allege patent infringements by Facebook. The patent in question appears to be for 'associating a piece of data with multiple categories.'
Additionally, while the judge in question deems it fine to let Leader Technologies look at Facebook's source (for a patent, no less!) in its entirety for a single feature, it would be 'overboard to ask a patent holder to disclose all of their products that practice any claim of the patent-in-suit.'"
TFA goes on to state:
So it isn't quite as outrageous as TFS makes it appear.
Caveat Utilitor
I don't know how this got modded insightful. Defendants in business litigation typically have to hand over the source code and other sensitive information (like sales data). The court simply issues a "protective order" limiting who can view the source code. Usually the protective order designates source code as "attorneys eyes only" meaning that only the requester's (Leader Technology) outside attorneys can view the source. Plaintiffs and defendants squabble over these issues as a way to drive up the cost of litigation and not because there is any risk that source code might be leaked and duplicated.
Here
Even if you win the rat race, you are still a rat
After reading through the '761 patent, any operating system which initiates a user working-space at login, e.g., a shell, will fall under the main claim of this patent.
I do not understand why Facebook's legal team has not been able to invalidate this patent via the presentation of prior art.
This patent should have never been issued and should not be defensible.
-Todd
Omne ignotum pro magnifico.
I'm looking at the patent now, and while it's not rocket science, it's nowhere near as simple as "associating a piece of data with multiple categories". In fact, that quote is from the article, not the patent. The patent mentions nothing of the sort. The patent seems to be about maintaining metadata across multiple application contexts and updating the context appropriately. It seems pretty wishy-washy, and I think it is too broad for a patent. But it's nothing like the mirage that has got everyone here foaming at the mouth. It's NOT a patent for associating a piece of data with multiple categories. It's more like a patent for a web application API framework, if I understand the gobbledy gook at all...
LS
There is a fine line between being a cultivated citizen and being someone else's crop. - A. J. Patrick Liszkie
Total health care spending is 17.6% of GDP. Nowhere near 200 times as much money could be involved in patents. :-)
Addendum: I don't know when it was written, but the provisional application was dated 2002 and the patent application was dated 2003, with an issue date in 2006 - still before Facebook implemented the features that the patent claims.
That said, the Facebook source code issue needs the following to be said:
1. Discovery in the courts gets you access to anything unless it is protected by trade secrets laws or the like. I haven't read the order or anything, but it'd be outright insane if the judge didn't order that the source code not be used for anything but looking for patent violations. I have seen similar things done, with stiff penalties to the lawyers and to the parties for violating such an order.
2. You don't need to look at the source code of Facebook to see whether it implements the invention described by this patent. You only need to create a user account. The patent doesn't seem to describe any algorithms, but rather a high-level information organization scheme.
I don't know how this got modded insightful.
Slashdot is peer-moderated, which implies that the moderator may not be an expert (or even well-informed!) about the topic of a comment they choose to mod "informative" or "insightful". Duh.