Slashdot Mirror
Facebook Patents Location Social Networking
bizwriter writes "Facebook just received a patent with broad claims that would seem to cover much of what Google (GOOG) Latitude, Foursquare, Gowalla, and others try to do in letting users share their locations with others. Patent number 7,809,805, called 'Systems and methods for automatically locating web-based social network members,' covers people manually entering a status, sending that and their location from a wireless device, and sharing both the status and location with others. Facebook's corporate value just took a big jump — and a number of other companies might have to either challenge the patent's validity or consider licensing deals."
With all the mobile companies already suing each other, this should just add more..
Awesome.
I'm the first to admit that I use the hell out of Facebook. Keeping in contact with old classmates, helping organize LAN parties with friends, posting about new articles on my site, doing the general "ZOMG it smells like snow outside!!!" type of things...but I never really saw the appeal of Places.
If really wanted people to know where I was, wouldn't I just post about it? Or is this something that some people just get, and others don't...? Also, how could Facebook patent it? They were hardly the first to offer this type of location service...
Living With a Nerd
Companies patent widely implemented ideas and sue everyone. Oh wait, that's not new.
Well the current purpose of the patent system is to provide work and revenue for lawyers. Its a way for them to attach themselves like parasites to the software buisness.
So does anyone know if I can move to antartica, I figure no one can find me there, wait Google street view is there now, crap. Does anyone know when I can move to the Moon?
There's pretty much no chance this will stand up in a lawsuit. Plenty of other companies beat them to market with a product like this. Foursquare for instance.
Perhaps instead of suing each other and licencing everything they could all get together and help get rid of software patents. Just imagine the money they could save on lawyers, in both applying for the patents, and defending against them.
Before everyone goes off a wall here, it should be noted Facebook applied for this February 2007.
Foursquare didn't even exist until 2009.
Dodgeball (which Google bought and created Latitude from) was started in 2005, but at the time it was based on TXT messages, not GPS, so not sure it applies.
How is it that every time a patent article is posted slashdot never posts the claims and always posts something from the abstract or the title which gives the patent holder no rights at all. The first claim is "1. A method of sharing locations of users participating in a social networking service at a geographic location, the method executed by a computer system and comprising: receiving location information and status information from a mobile device of a first user of the social networking service, the location information representing a geographic location of the first user, the status information manually provided by the first user on an input module of the mobile device; associating the location information with the status information of the first user in a database; and sending the status information and the location information of the first user to a second user for display. "
While that claim is still pretty broad it isn't nearly as broad as the thing posted in the summary.
Maybe some day /. will understand how to look at a patent but it probably won't be any time soon.
Polo!
*Cease and disist letter arrives in mail
Can I patent wiping my ass so I can sue everyone too?
This idea is completely obvious when taking into account users having internet enabled mobile devices with GPS.
Shame on the USPTO to bundle up a couple existing technologies in an obvious manner that effectively shuts down inovation.
that their years of hard work and billions of research dollars spent on the concept of telling friends where you are in addition to what you are doing has been rewarded. Can you imagine what kind of world it would be to live in where they were not given a patent for such a far-reaching, insightful, life-changing idea? It is brilliant innovations like this getting well-deserved patents that reaffirm my faith in our system of intellectual property protection. Don't listen to the nay-sayers who will undoubtedly claim that the idea is obvious, and undeserving of a patent; this is clearly a game-changing idea that no other company had the right combination of foresight and will to develop, and Facebook clearly deserves the right to charge a licensing fee to all those lazy copycat companies that can't come up with an original idea of their own.
This patent was filed February 28, 2007. The only thing this patent seems to add on to what Dodgeball did in ~2000 is that location is that instead of entering a location manually and sending via SMS, the patent has the device uploading GPS location data, and having a single program within which to enter location and status data. Considering GPS wasn't commonly available in 2000, and neither were smartphones that could run programs and had data plans, I don't see how this isn't considered an obvious improvement on a previous invention.
No trespassing. Violators will be shot. Survivors will be shot again.
Patent filed Feb 28th, 2007 by Facebook Announced November 8th, 2006 by Helio GFY Facebook
Sounds very similar (location and status) to APRS.
The ability to send your GPS location and a status to a remote point? Yeah, that's not new.
Wow, that parent summary looks even more familiar.
GPS identifier and status for web-based social network members located at or near the same location automatically appears on a GPS-enabled device.
APRS does that, just without the web based social network requirement. And I am pretty sure that with stations receiving and updating an internet server, you could make it work very similar to what some of the things they are talking about in the patent.
New? Not really, just stuck "social network" on it and made it work with a social network. Novel? Again, APRS has supported things like this for a while and I'm sure there are station listings online that can be queried to show who is at a location.
There's a social app for the iPhone, iPad, iPod touch and Blackberry called Grindr.
It uses GPS or WiFI location data to show potential (male/male) dates nearby.
Back when I was still a student, I used to update my status and location on my web page on the campus network. And I am aware that people used to do this with their "finger" profiles back before there was the web. Some people with "text pagers" even managed to these updates using their pagers. (Also, other things were wired to publish their status on web pages (or finger profiles), for example vending machines and hot tubs.)
Don't try to out wierd me, three-eyes. I get stranger things than you, free with my breakfast cereal. --Zaphod Beeblebr
The control/proprietary power of Social gaming/application on FB and its platform will become far more controlled now (Which it already is) - They are just thinning the herd again...
maybe repeating this like a machine will get it to you : patents can NOT work. dont try to make a faulty mechanism work through excessive effort.
Read radical news here
As an old amateur radio operator I must ask. How is location based social networking different than APRS that's been in use for over a decade?
Operators with an attached GPS had their location updated automatically, Operators without a GPS entered their location manually, and the location was passed with each message packet. There were web pages that allowed people not currently on-the-air to monitor the communications via http.
These comments are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of my employer or colleagues...
... that will last until the patent is challenged on the bases that a) it is obvious to someone skilled in the state of the art and b) it was being done long before they thought of it (www.aprs.org)
So, how do I turn it off, again?
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Have we patented patenting yet?
I must remind Slashdot that I hold the patent for "placing characters in on a blank space in order to form legible text that delivers information remotely to computer users." I await my royalties check.
they did this with phones in NY and Japan 10 years ago, and before that, PAPERS HAD PERSONAL ADS
Especially the first few. Not much of a patent.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
How is it that every time a patent article is posted slashdot never posts the claims and always posts something from the abstract or the title which gives the patent holder no rights at all.
Because the editors are waiting for someone like you to make a comment that analyzes one or more of the independent claims. Slashdot editors are good at what they do, and armchair paralegals are good at what they do.
Such kind of patent harms internet and advancement in general. Why not patent things in a way that would lead everyone to go forward? I..e. if someone patent posting duplicate news would be a boom for slashdot and other similar communities
Maybe I missed it, but I find it interesting that the patent doesn't explicitly state what a social networking service *is*. Sure, we all "know" what it is -- but in something like a patent shouldn't this be very clearly defined? What if a "social networking service" encompasses presence/IM/chat software? The XMPP protocol (Jabber, now owned by Cisco, is based off this) has drafts (see XEP-0080) already written for providing user location in that context. I'm sure this isn't the only draft written of its kind. Think of large enterprise solutions such as Microsoft OCS, Cisco Unified Presence, Avaya OneX. I bet they all have location solutions in the works. Do these fit into the realm of "social networking services"?
" I am Here ! " is patentable.
I am anouncing my patent pending on " You are here "
The depth and breadth of the current wave of stupidity is amazing.
Two words: Prior Art.
Who the hell is in charge of the software patent division?
Because I know that when I was reading this story I was idly wondering what Google's stock ticker symbol was!
There is an amateur radio system called Automatic Position Reporting System that was invented in 1994. By 2000 it could do every feature claimed in the patent, including the use of handheld gps devices and online databases, manually entered status reports, and the rest. It is all documented in the proceedings of the Digital Communications Conference.
This patentwont stand.
Unless you are deploying a competitor to the GPS system, then you shouldn't get a patent on anything related to location sensing, because I bet they all use GPS and send updates to a server on the internet using XML. Obvious by definition.
But it seems to me that it is a lot like patenting using the telephone, after Bell patented the telephone. Wait! I take that back. Please ignore this. I need to go to the patent office real quick!
Makes me not want to use Facebook. I hope that's the reaction they were looking for ;)
I think the patent examiner was underpaid, bored and not paying attention when he let this through. Examiners should get fired for this stuff... oh wait, they can't hire enough of them.
Sharing location information would never be obvious to someone skilled in the art of mobile software, after all it was never do.... oh wait, in 2007 when this was filed lots of people were doing it.
I just filed a patent on a computing device attached to a screen, this gives me hope it will get approved!
This is patent is so silly that prior art can be found anywhere. For example XMPP folks have specs initially published in 2003 describing the same exact scenario:
http://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0080.html (User Location)
This document defines a format for capturing data about an entity's geographical location (geoloc). The format defined herein can describe most earthbound geographical locations, especially locations that may change fairly frequently. Potential uses for this approach include:
Publishing location information to a set of subscribers.
Querying another entity for its location.
Sending location information to another entity.
Attaching location information to presence.
Geographical location is captured in terms of Global Positioning System (GPS) coordinates as well as civil location (city, street, building, etc.).
Hmm, seems like gps with any webbased interface should be prior art on this.
If I know you and you want to know where i'm at? Call me on my cell phone, text me, email me and ask.
Be seeing you...
Wouldn't that loosely describe any 911 system receiving location information from your cell phone? That's a hugely obvious chunk of prior art.
Can't the fucking patent office take my word for it that I have asked numerous friends "Where are you?" on the telephone as far back as the sixties?
I hope that Facebook will maintain a fairly defensive stance and won't get terribly aggressive on the patent litigation front. Indeed, there's nothing wrong with engaging in some form of patent enforcement, in the event of infringement of your IP by others. But some (e.g., Microsoft) seem to have taken it to an extreme degree.