Facebook found and purchased eight software patents for the sole purpose of “retaliating” against Yahoo for its pending patent lawsuit against the social networking giant, Yahoo argued in a strongly worded court filing Friday that accuses Facebook of bad faith.
“No employee or officer of Facebook or any affiliated company conceived of, reduced to practice, or developed the alleged inventions claimed in the eight patents acquired from non-practicing entities,” Yahoo wrote, in a 37-page answer to Facebook’s counterclaim. “In fact, the applications for many of these patents predate Facebook itself.”
The software patent skirmish is heating up at a time of significant change for both companies. Yahoo is in the midst of a radical course correction that began with a layoff of 2,000 employees earlier this month, while Facebook is gearing up an IPO with an anticipated $100 billion valuation, expected perhaps as early as next month.
Yahoo’s lawsuit against Facebook alleges that the social media giant’s business infringes on 10 of Yahoo’s patents. The patents cover commonly used features of the social web: personalized advertising, customized portal pages and news feeds, recommendations to connect with other suggested users (and screen out spammers), social music and messaging applications, and authorizing some users (but not others) to see different sections of your content.
Facebook countersued Apr. 3, alleging Yahoo infringed on methods of providing basic web functionality such as search, headline feeds, photo tagging, and, of course, advertising.
Yahoo, which added Friday new infringement allegations concerning search and advertising, claims Facebook lacked a “good faith basis” for its countersuit.
“On information and belief, many, if not all, of these patents were acquired by Facebook for purposes of retaliation against Yahoo in this case,” Yahoo said in the court filing.
Facebook spokesman Andrew Noyes said in an e-mail that the social-networking site was “perplexed by Yahoo’s erratic actions” and that “we disagree with these latest claims.”
Yahoo, which denies it is infringing Facebook’s patents, said in a statement that it intends to “vigorously protect” its intellectual property “for our customers and shareholders.”
See Also:
