A Call to Patents: A look at the current state of patents held by social media and technological companies. The intellectual property of social media businesses has seen a rise in the acquisition of patents. For such a fast growing industry, will this “arming” of corporate enterprises and the verdict of one monstrous case determine what could be a legal onslaught within the technological industry?

1. A CALL TO PATENTS
A look at the current state of patents held by social media and technological companies
By Ross Hornish

2. HISTORY OF PATENTS
 Litterae Pantentes
 Sybaris, Greece – 500 B.C.
 John of Utynam – England – 1449
 1790 – Article I, Section VIII U.S. Constituion
“Congress shall have power . . . To promote the progress of science and useful
arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their
respective writings and discoveries.”

3. HISTORY OF PATENTS
“That is because the purpose of patents is twofold: to
protect the inventor and to speed technological
progress.”
Does flourishing technology go hand in hand with
uninhibited technological progress?

4. ONLINE PRESENCE
 John Abrams – Nightclub owner (former CEO Friendster)
“A method and apparatus for calculating, displaying and acting upon
relationships in a social network.” (US Patent - 7,069,308)
 Amazon.com’s patent
“A networked computer system [that] provides various services for
assisting users in locating, and establishing contact relationships
with, other users."

5. ONLINE PRESENCE
 Trolling
• What is it and who does it?
 Billion-dollar Lawyer
• James Desmarais

6. CASES
Yahoo vs. Facebook
 Legality vs. Industry Norms
 CEO Scott Thompson
 Interesting timing of suit

7. YAHOO VS. FACEBOOK
“Pathetic and heartbreaking last stand for Yahoo.”
Eric Hippeau,
former chairman, Yahoo

8. YAHOO VS. FACEBOOK
Ammunition
 Yahoo – 3,330 Patents
 Facebook – 160 Patents
Reported they purchased 780 patents from IBM
(22nd of March 2012)

9. CASES
Twitter
 Total patents as of 2010 – 0
 Total patent applications as of 2012 – 1
“It's like a race: look back and you lose speed
and, eventually, the contest.”

10. TWITTER
VS Technologies vs. Twitter Inc.
“were not „new ideas‟,
but were established”

11. MICROSOFT
$1.1 Billion for 800 Patents

12. TWITTER’S ARESENAL
 Anyone?
 Pull-to-refresh
 Possible sights
at Apple Inc.?

13. PINTREST – TREAD SOFTLY
“if they were
to profit off
Jonathan Klein, of these
CEO of Getty
Images
images, there
would be a
lawsuit filed
for the monies
owed”

14. INTERVIEW
Lauren Seiter
• Business and Commercial Litigation
• New York State Bar

15. CONCLUSION
“It‟s better to have
a patent and not
need one, than to
need a patent and
not have one”

17. QUESTIONS?