Antisocial networking

By Ian, on July 8th, 2006

Hopefully, the news report in Red Herring that Friendster has acquired a patent on social networking won’t mean that the article I’ve been writing on the subject won’t be out-of-date by the time it comes out. The patent, applied for in 2003 and awarded June 27th, applies to a “system, method, and apparatus for connecting users in an online computer system based on their relationships within social networks”. They’re basically talking about the ability to make connections with ‘friends of friends’ within a number of degrees of separation.

Kent Lindstrom, the company’s president, said it was “too early to say” what the company would do to protect its “intellectual property”. Hypothetically, this might include attempting to make money from charging licensing fees for the technology to other social networking sites or other forms of litigation. Friendster has 9–10 million users, many of them in Asia. In the US, though, it has been overshadowed in terms of user numbers by companies like bebo and MySpace.

It is hard to decide what is the most depressing about this story. That it took three years to acquire a patent — the equivalent of decades in the online world — is pretty divisive. I’m fairly sympathetic to inventors, so the ability for other companies to mimic your technology in order to gain an advantage or undermine your USP for three years seems wrong. On the other hand, the terms of the patent appear to be rather broad, and perhaps reminiscent of the six-year battle between Xerox, Microsoft and Apple to establish ownership of the WIMP interface that had already become the defacto standard for modern computers. As I recall, the lawyers won.

Update:

I’m not a lawyer (obviously) and things may be better/worse than they appear, depending on your stance. There has been some discussion of this at Mashable*, and RJ Herrick says,

This filing is an Application document. Friendster has not yet won any actual protection for the idea, the USPTO has simply acknowledged that this idea has been filed and is under scrutiny for potential granting. If it passes, another (Grant) document will be filed, at which point they are assured their monopoly. Many apply, far fewer are granted. Mostly this is a signal for anyone who wants to contest the filing to speak up– companies are continuously combing through both Apps and Grants to see what their competitors are up to and protect their intellectual turf.