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28 April 2012| last updated at 09:24AM

Facebook, Yahoo! patent battle heats up



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SAN FRANCISCO: A legal battle between Yahoo! and Facebook heated up Friday with the floundering Internet pioneer accusing the rising social network star of buying patents just to retaliate in court.

The accusation came in a 37-page response filed by Yahoo! to a countersuit  Facebook filed charging that the Sunnyvale, California-based company is  violating the social network’s patents — and not the other way around.

“In retaliation for Yahoo!’s good faith allegations of patent infringement,  Facebook alleges infringement of 10 patents as counterclaims,” Yahoo! attorney  Kevin Smith said in a reply filed in federal court.

“Facebook lacks a good faith basis for most, if not all, of its  counterclaims, particularly those patents that it purchased from others.”    Along with asking a judge to rule immediately in its favor on all claims in  the cases, Yahoo! wants Facebook to be made to pay its legal costs.

“We remain perplexed by Yahoo’s erratic actions,” a Facebook spokesman told  AFP.

“We disagree with these latest claims and we will continue to defend  ourselves vigorously.”    In March, Yahoo! filed suit against Facebook in US District Court in San  Francisco, accusing the social networking giant of infringing on 10 patents.

The Yahoo! suit accused Facebook of infringing on patents in areas  including advertising, privacy and messaging and contended that Facebook’s  growth “has been based in large part on Facebook’s use of Yahoo!’s patented  technology.”    Yahoo! asked the court to order Facebook to halt its alleged  patent-infringing activities and to assess unspecified damages.

Facebook, which is shifting operations to a former Sun Microsystems campus  in the northern California city of Menlo Park, denied violating any valid  Yahoo! patents.

Facebook went on to accuse Yahoo! of infringing on its patented technology  in a broad array of products including online venues for news, games, cars,  travel and photo-sharing service Flickr.

The social networking service asked the court to dismiss Yahoo!’s complaint  entirely and make the Internet veteran pay damages as well as the social  network’s legal costs.

In its legal response, Yahoo! argued that Facebook essentially cheated by  buying patents to use as legal ammunition in their fight.

“Facebook purchased and asserted patents tainted by inequitable conduct,”  Smith said in the filing.

“Furthermore, Facebook asserted its newly-acquired patents against aspects  of Yahoo!’s products for which there is little to no publicly-available  information,” he continued.

“Facebook’s infringement assertions appear to be based on nothing more than  conjecture, assumptions, and unsupported inferences about how Yahoo!’s products  may possibly operate.”    Yahoo! also added a few more patents to the list of intellectual property  it claims Facebook is abusing.

The legal brawl is taking place as Facebook prepares to go public on Wall  Street with a valuation of up to $100 billion.

Facebook recently amended paperwork filed with the US Securities and  Exchange Commission to warn potential investors that Yahoo!’s patent lawsuit   could deliver a significant blow to its business.

“This litigation is still in its early stages and the final outcome,  including our liability, if any, with respect to these claims, is uncertain,”  Facebook said in the updated SEC filing.

“If an unfavorable outcome were to occur in this litigation, the impact  could be material to our business, financial condition or results of  operations.”    Patent suits are a frequent occurrence among smartphone and tablet computer  makers, and the world’s best known brands are ensnared in a complex web of  legal claims, but such suits are relatively rare among social media companies.- AFP

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