Facebook Sues Boston Phoenix And WFNX Over Alleged Patent Breach

By The WBUR Newsroom
Nov 9, 2010, 2:09 PM
1 Comments

BOSTON — Boston legal analysts say a lawsuit filed by social media giant Facebook against the owners of the Boston Phoenix and WFNX radio is possibly a strategy to resolve a patent fight that’s been going on since last year.

Facebook alleges the “band guide” and “find restaurants” features on the Phoenix website as well as the radio station’s online music player, all breach Facebook patents.

Boston-based patent attorney Eric Belt has reviewed the counter-suit, now in Boston federal court, against the paper’s owners Phoenix Media.

“It’s not tit for tat, but it’s a way to say to the plaintiff, look, this isn’t just going to be an easy ride for you. You’re going to now have to fight back against our own patents,” Belt says.

Phoenix Media first filed a patent lawsuit against Facebook last year.

Please follow our community rules when engaging in comment discussion on wbur.org.

Ben

This story is missing the most important bit of information, the patent in question. Please update this story with the subject of the dispute. Otherwise, how does anyone know what it’s about?

I have looked at sections quoted in the article and did not see anything that looked proprietary, or related to Facebook. It looks like any other guide on the internet.

Does Facbook claim they own using the internet to find a restaurant? If so, this is a much bigger story as there are thousands of websites that allow you to search for restaurants. I don’t see how Facebook could own restaurant searches, or the criteria for restaurant searches.

Too bad the story does not say what patent is the subject of this lawsuit. That’s quite an omission by the writer.

To infer Facebook owns the method for using the internet to find bands or restaurants puts thousands of website owners at risk from similar lawsuits. It is just not believable Facebook could own such a thing to the exclusion of everyone else who wants to produce a guide on these subjects using the internet.

But if true, that is quite a landmark in the history of the internet, for Facebook to be the exclusive owner of a form of written expression on a certain subject.

Let’s hope WBUR will clarify exactly what this potentially groundbreaking story is about.