Yahoo Challenges Facebook in Patent Dispute

On the heels of Facebook filing for its record-setting initial public offering, Yahoo is tackling the social media giant over patent licensing fees. Following all the hubbub around Facebook’s highly anticipated IPO this spring, Yahoo has decided it wants a piece of the action.

By Lindsey Peacock / February 28, 2012

On the heels of Facebook filing for its record-setting initial public offering, Yahoo is tackling the social media giant over patent licensing fees.

Following all the hubbub around Facebook’s highly anticipated IPO this spring, Yahoo has decided it wants a piece of the action.

The New York Times reports that the two companies met Monday to discuss a potential patent war. Yahoo is asking Facebook to fork over licensing fees for 10 to 20 patents for technologies such as its messaging service, website customizations and advertising.

As we’ve written before in BCBusiness, companies going to war over patents is not exactly a new phenomenon. What’s significant in this case is that the tech world hasn’t seen companies take on social networks over infringements.

Yahoo directly threatened to take the social media giant to court if they protest to paying the fees. Facebook hasn’t provided a response as of yet.

Facebook isn’t the only social media platform facing intellectual property woes. Pinterest, the latest and greatest online trend, could see a string of IP lawsuits in its future over copyrighted photos being “pinned” on the site without due credit for the original source or photographer.

Flickr has even developed a piece of code dubbed the Pinterest “Kill Switch,” which prevents photos on the page from being pinned to the site.

As more social networks become extremely profitable ventures, we can expect to see companies, especially older platforms such as Yahoo, duking it out for whatever they can get.