Facebook Files Patent-Infringement Countersuit Against Yahoo

Facebook fires back against Yahoo with a massive countersuit claiming that Yahoo infringed on 10 of the social network’s patents on social media technologies. This lawsuit, filed on Tuesday, appears to be a counterattack against the suit Yahoo filed against Facebook in March.

Facebook asserts that Yahoo violated the ten following patents:

• 7,827,208 — “Generating a Feed of Stories Personalized for Members of a Social Network”
• 7,945,653 — “Tagging Digital Media”
• 6,288,717 — “Headline Posting Algorithm”
• 6,216,133 — “Method for Enabling a User to Fetch a Specific Information Item from a Set of Information Items and a System for Carrying Out Such a Method”
• 6,411,949 — “Customizing Database Information for Presentation with Media Selections”
• 6,236,978 — “System and Method for Dynamic Profiling of Users in One-to-One Applications”
• 7,603,331 — “System and Method for Dynamic Profiling of Users in One-to-One Applications and for Validating User Rules”
• 8,103,611 — “Architectures, Systems, Apparatus, Methods, and Computer- Readable Medium for Providing Recommendations to Users and Applications Using Multidimensional Data”
• 8,005,896 — “System for Controlled Distribution of User Profiles Over a Network”
• 8,150,913 — “System for Controlled Distribution of User Profiles Over a Network”

Facebook’s general counsel, Ted Ullyot, told All Things D:

From the outset, we said we would defend ourselves vigorously against Yahoo’s lawsuit, and today we filed our answer as well as counter-claims against Yahoo for infringing ten of Facebook’s patents. While we are asserting patent claims of our own, we do so in response to Yahoo’s short-sighted decision to attack one of its partners and prioritize litigation over innovation.

That last sentence says it all. Facebook is defending itself before its IPO, which is expected to come in May. Despite purchasing some 750 patents from IBM on March 22nd of this year, the patents Facebook is using in its countersuit appear to be all its own, or those of Facebook employees. Read the full Answers and Counterclaims from Facebook on Scribd.