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Facebook Locks Down Social Gift Giving Patent

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the no-presents-for-you dept.

bizwriter writes "Facebook has been on a roll of late, nailing a number of patent grants that will help it retain dominance in social networking by creating barriers for competitors. Yesterday came patent number 7,970,657, 'Giving gifts and displaying assets in a social network environment'. Although it doesn't directly prevent other social networks from enabling gift giving among users, a clever legal and technical maneuver makes it far more difficult."

8 of 185 comments (clear)

  1. WTF? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    What's the point of patenting things anymore if the "design", "process" or "technology" is so trivial as this? I may as well go ahead with my patent for "any method of expulsion of bodily fluids" - as dumb as the USPTO is, they'll probably grant it. Prior art be damned.

  2. europe by chris.alex.thomas · · Score: 3, Interesting

    In europe I doubt many people will care much, I'll write my software without fear of software patents and just scrub off the USA from my list of places to visit, then when the legal letter arrives with "you must stop using our " I'll throw it in the bin and carry on with my life. If you live in a truely free country, you don't tend to care what other legal systems say, what matters, is what your country says... I love europe sometimes, although I hope that they don't change the whole "patents are not valid in europe" thingy.....and lets hope I don't bump into any "rendition crews" :)

  3. beam in thine own eye by t2t10 · · Score: 4, Informative

    Yeah, and that will happen after you launch a successful Facebook competitor and become a gazillionaire, right? These patents matter because the few companies that could possibly compete with facebook are global.

    As for "truly free", Europe has serious restrictions on freedom of expression, much more onerous copyright restrictions (no fair use, for example), and strong limits on competition; in comparison, software patents are a small issue. And software patents are being pushed onto the member countries through the EU.

    1. Re:beam in thine own eye by MareLooke · · Score: 3, Informative

      No fair use? Citation needed because I seriously believe you pulled that one out of your ass. Afaik copyright law is also still in the hands of individual countries anyway, over here at least schools are free to use published articles in their entirety as they see fit, for example.

      And yeah spreading hate and trying to retroactively alter history (eg. negationism) isn't allowed in most of Europe, which is bad how? Also limits on competition? There's limits to prevent LACK of competition (ask all of your fellow Americans that get the "choice" of having only 1 cable provider how well that works for them)

      No idea why you were modded informative, as a Troll you did a damn good job though

  4. gifting online then and now by alphatel · · Score: 5, Funny
    Playing social games, 1989
    • gift troll bread
    • You gifted a bread to a large troll.
    • The troll smiles and lets you pass the bridge

    New ending! 2011

    • Mark Zuckerberg booms: Though shall not gift!
    • The troll, angry at your attempted patent theft, slays you
    --
    When the foot seeks the place of the head, the line is crossed. Know your place. Keep your place. Be a shoe.
  5. Re:Facebook is a fad by vlm · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Or... They will get bought out by a patent troll.

    Or their new competitor, whatever it will be, will have to buy them out or else get patent trolled.

    That is the gameplan. Can't sell out once everyone leaves, but even if there are no subscribers, you still get to keep the "valuable" patents.

    Its a sign that FB internally realizes they have peaked and are on the decline.

    --
    "Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
  6. Maybe what we need is... by Ken+Hall · · Score: 3, Insightful

    .. one guy at the patent office to look at each patent for about five seconds, and stamp ones like this with "This is stupid, go away... NO PATENT FOR YOU!!"

  7. Re:At first glance by sosume · · Score: 3, Insightful

    This. It should not be possible to get a patent for an idea that just surfaced. Patents should only be granted for months upon months of hard work, research, validation and such. And expire after a short time, say 5 years.
    A patent for giving a gift, making a gesture or arranging a number of icons is just silly and killing the software industry. The patent office should void all such patents and since algorithms cannot be patented, no software patents should be allowed. At all.