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."

Comments

Re:Abolish Patents.

[marcello_dl]

Oh the french revolution. A perfect example of a new class that fight for supremacy over aristocracy. That was my point though, not yours. Since you bring up wikipedia, whose symbols are up there in the picture, between the angels with somewhat dark wings?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Declaration_des_Droits_de_lHomme.jpg

PS. Since you promised to STFU, anticipating your reactions as you read this, I further clarify that I believe that what's in the declaration of rights is of utmost moral and historical importance, the work of idealists. I also think that for powerful people such declarations are simply a bunch of paragraph to be enforced or ignored according to needs.