Facebook Countersues Yahoo in Patent Fight

by

Facebook filed its answer and counterclaims against Yahoo! today in the Silicon Valley patent battle between the social networking giant and the fading portal.

Yahoo filed its patent lawsuit three weeks ago, and Facebook fired back a salvo of patent infringement counterclaims right back at the portal.

Facebook claims that Yahoo is violating the following patents:

  • Patent No. 7,827,208 – “Generating a Feed of Stories Personalized for Members of a Social Network”
  • Patent No. 7,945,653 – “Tagging Digital Media”
  • Patent No. 6,288,717 – “Headline Posting Algorithm”
  • Patent No. 6,216,133 – Method for Enabling a User to Fetch a Specific Information Item from a Set of Information Items and a System for Carrying Out Such a Method”
  • Patent No. 6,411,949 – Customizing Data base Information for Presentation with Media Selections”
  • Patent No. 6,236,978 – “System and Method for Dynamic Profiling of Users in One-to-One Applications”
  • Patent No. 7,603,331 – “System and Method for Dynamic Profiling of Users in One-to-One Applications and for Validating User Rules”
  • Patent No. 8,103,611 – “Architectures, Systems, Apparatus, Methods, and Computer-Readable Medium for Providing Recommendations to Users and Applications Using Multidimensional Data”
  • Patent No. 8,005,896 – “System for Controlled Distribution of User Profiles Over a Network”
  • Patent No. 8,150,913 – “System for Controlled Distribution of User Profiles Over a Network”

While Facebook admits that it received a letter from Yahoo! in early February demanding that it license a slew of patents from the Sunnyvale company, this is the kind of case that appears headed for a slew of settlement conferences, at least after Yahoo launches its latest round of layoffs and restructuring.

Photo credit: D. Silliman via screenshot

Read Facebook’s answer and legal counterclaims here:

Answer and Counterclaims (Yahoo, Inc. v. Facebook, Inc.)

Then browse Yahoo’s original complaint against Facebook here:

Complaint for Patent Infringement (Yahoo, Inc. v. Facebook, Inc.)