Google, Facebook Sued Over Social-Networking Patent (Update1)
March 10, 2010, 10:29 AM EST(Adds previous litigation in eighth paragraph.)
By Susan Decker and David Glovin
March 10 (Bloomberg) -- Google Inc., owner of the most-used Internet search engine, and Facebook Inc. were sued by a New York company over an invention related to software that lets people join social networks on their mobile phones.
Wireless Ink Corp., which runs the Winksite service, claims that Facebook Mobile and Google Buzz are infringing a patent issued in October. In a complaint filed yesterday in federal court in Manhattan, the company is seeking cash compensation and a court order to prevent further use of its invention.
The patent is related to ways of offering content that is accessible by mobile devices, Wireless Ink’s lawyer Jeremy Pitcock said in an interview. The closely held software maker develops Web sites that can be made available over wireless devices and has more than 75,000 registered users, he said.
With the application first made public in 2004, Google and Facebook had to have known of the patent, “given the time and resources defendants have invested in their desktop and mobile Web sites as well as their strategic importance,” Wireless Ink, based in East Islip, New York, said in the complaint.
Andrew Pederson, a spokesman for Mountain View, California- based Google, said yesterday that the company is reviewing the complaint and had no immediate comment. Google Buzz, begun in February, creates a social-network service based on contacts in Gmail user accounts.
Google, Buzz
Google, which started Buzz to challenge Facebook’s position as the most-popular social-networking site, is considering building a version that works outside of Gmail. On Feb. 13, Google changed the privacy settings to address complaints by users and privacy experts.
A Facebook spokesman, Andrew Noyes, said the Palo Alto, California-based company is reviewing the complaint.
This isn’t the first time Facebook has faced patent- infringement claims over its service. The company was sued last year by a Boston company called Tele-Publishing Inc. over a patent related to a method of providing a personal page and in 2009 by Mekiki Co., owner of a Japanese social networking site, over patents related to ways to identify “friends” through existing contacts. Those cases are pending.
The case is Wireless Ink Corp. v. Facebook Inc., 10-cv- 01841, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York (Manhattan).
--Editors: Stephen Farr, Peter Blumberg.
To contact the reporters on this story: Susan Decker in Washington at sdecker1@bloomberg.net; David Glovin in New York federal court at dglovin@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editor responsible for this story: David E. Rovella at drovella@bloomberg.net.
