Earlier this week, I noted that Facebook currently owns 43 patents (and about 80 patent applications).  In fact, there are only 42 currently issued patents, with one patent being listed twice.  Today, I am taking a look at those 42 patents to see where they came from.  Of the 42 patents, 10 were based on Facebook’s own inventions and 32 were acquired from various companies.  Facebook has clearly changed its strategy and increased its patent acquisition rate within the past few years. Of the 32 patents that were acquired, 11 were acquired this year, 20 were acquired in 2010 and 1 was acquired in 2009.

Facebook’s patents are broken down as follows:

Facebook’s Own Inventions

Ten U.S. patents have been issued to date based on Facebook’s own inventions.  Mark Zuckerberg is listed as an inventor on four of these patents.

Patent No. Title Assignor
7827208 GENERATING A FEED OF STORIES PERSONALIZED FOR MEMBERS OF A SOCIAL NETWORK Andrew Bosworth et al
7933810 COLLECTIVELY GIVING GIFTS IN A SOCIAL NETWORK ENVIRONMENT Jared Morgenstern
7970657 GIVING GIFTS AND DISPLAYING ASSETS IN A SOCIAL NETWORK ENVIRONMENT Jared Morgenstern
7809805 SYSTEMS AND METHODS FOR AUTOMATICALLY LOCATING WEB-BASED SOCIAL NETWORK MEMBERS Jed Stremel et al
7669123 DYNAMICALLY PROVIDING A NEWS FEED ABOUT A USER OF A SOCIAL NETWORK Mark Zuckerberg et al.
7725492 MANAGING INFORMATION ABOUT RELATIONSHIPS IN A SOCIAL NETWORK VIA A SOCIAL TIMELINE Mark Zuckerberg et al.
7797256 GENERATING SEGMENTED COMMUNITY FLYERS IN A SOCIAL NETWORKING SYSTEM Mark Zuckerberg et al.
7827265 SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR CONFIRMING AN ASSOCIATION IN A WEB-BASED SOCIAL NETWORK Charlie Cheever et al
7945653 TAGGING DIGITAL MEDIA Mark Zuckerberg et al.
8027943 SYSTEMS AND METHODS FOR OBSERVING RESPONSES TO INVITATIONS BY USERS IN A WEB-BASED SOCIAL NETWORK Yun-Fang Juan et al.

Patents Acquired from others

Of the remaining 32 patents, eleven were acquired from Friendster around June 2010. As I mentioned previously, it is believed that Facebook paid 40 million dollars for these patents.

Nine patents were acquired from Hewlett Packard around February 2010. As noted by the Gametime IP blog, many of these patents have nothing to do with Facebook’s business, but Facebook enforced some of them against Phoenix Media Group.  The suit against Phoenix was likely a defensive move in response to Phoenix suing Facebook for patent infringement over two of its patents.

Seven patents were acquired from Walker Digital around August 2011.  As you may remember, Walker Digital filed suit against Facebook (among others) in April 2011.  In July of this year, Gametime IP noted that three companies settled with Walker Digital, with two of those companies being Apple and Groupon and the third being unknown.  It was later determined that the third company was indeed Facebook.  Unfortunately, since such deals are typically confidential, we do not known what the settlement was and therefore what these patents cost Facebook.

Three patents were acquired from British Telecommunication around April 2011. One patent was acquired from Applied Materials, Inc around May 2009. One patent was acquired from Divan Industries around August 2011. Unfortunately, no information is available about these deals.

Patent No. Title Assignor Assignment Date
6421651 METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR PRIORITY-BASED JUKEBOX QUEUING Walker Digital 8/5/2011
6430537 METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR PRIORITY-BASED JUKEBOX QUEUING Walker Digital 8/5/2011
7188080 SYSTEMS AND METHODS WHEREIN A BUYER PURCHASES PRODUCTS IN A PLURALITY OF PRODUCT CATEGORIES Walker Digital 8/5/2011
7340419 METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR PRODUCT DISPLAY Walker Digital 8/5/2011
7526440 METHOD, COMPUTER PRODUCT, AND APPARATUS FOR FACILITATING THE PROVISION OF OPINIONS TO A SHOPPER FROM A PANEL OF PEERS Walker Digital 8/5/2011
7835950 METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR PRODUCT DISPLAY Walker Digital 8/5/2011
7912758 METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR PRODUCT DISPLAY Walker Digital 8/5/2011
6199157 SYSTEM, METHOD AND MEDIUM FOR MANAGING INFORMATION Applied Materials, Inc 5/7/2009
6393468 DATA ACCESS CONTROL British Telecommunication Company 4/22/2011
7233997 METHOD OF AUTHENTICATING A USER OF A CLIENT TERMINAL British Telecommunication Company 4/22/2011
7373338 ACCESS CONTROL TO SHARED RESOURCES British Telecommunication Company 4/22/2011
7231428 COMMUNICATION SYSTEM USING ALIAS MANAGEMENT RULES FOR AUTOMATICALLY CHANGING SENDER ALIAS IN A MESSAGE BASED ON GROUP THAT INCLUDES RECIPIENT ADDRESS DIVAN INDUSTRIES, LLC 8/10/2011
7069308 SYSTEM, METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR CONNECTING USERS IN AN ONLINE COMPUTER SYSTEM BASED ON THEIR RELATIONSHIPS WITHIN SOCIAL NETWORKS Friendster 6/7/2010
7117254 METHOD OF INDUCING CONTENT UPLOADS IN A SOCIAL NETWORK Friendster 6/7/2010
7188153 SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR MANAGING CONNECTIONS IN AN ONLINE SOCIAL NETWORK Friendster 6/7/2010
7451161 COMPATIBILITY SCORING OF USERS IN A SOCIAL NETWORK Friendster 6/7/2010
7478078 METHOD FOR SHARING RELATIONSHIP INFORMATION STORED IN A SOCIAL NETWORK DATABASE WITH THIRD PARTY DATABASES Friendster 6/7/2010
7606687 PROXIMITY SEARCH METHODS USING TILES TO REPRESENT GEOGRAPHICAL ZONES Friendster 6/7/2010
7680882 MULTIMEDIA AGGREGATION IN AN ONLINE SOCIAL NETWORK Friendster 6/7/2010
7788260 RANKING SEARCH RESULTS BASED ON THE FREQUENCY OF CLICKS ON THE SEARCH RESULTS BY MEMBERS OF A SOCIAL NETWORK WHO ARE WITHIN A PREDETERMINED DEGREE OF SEPARATION Friendster 6/7/2010
7890501 VISUAL TAGS FOR SEARCH RESULTS GENERATED FROM SOCIAL NETWORK INFORMATION Friendster 6/7/2010
8010458 SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR MANAGING INFORMATION FLOW BETWEEN MEMBERS OF AN ONLINE SOCIAL NETWORK Friendster 6/7/2010
8037093 FEEDING UPDATES TO LANDING PAGES OF USERS OF AN ONLINE SOCIAL NETWORK FROM EXTERNAL SOURCES Friendster 6/7/2010
6065051 APPARATUS AND METHOD FOR COMMUNICATION BETWEEN MULTIPLE BROWSERS Hewlett-Packard 2/15/2010
6253325 APPARATUS AND METHOD FOR SECURING DOCUMENTS POSTED FROM A WEB RESOURCE Hewlett-Packard 2/15/2010
6314458 APPARATUS AND METHOD FOR COMMUNICATION BETWEEN MULTIPLE BROWSERS Hewlett-Packard 2/15/2010
6633311 E-SERVICE TO MANAGE AND EXPORT CONTACT INFORMATION Hewlett-Packard 2/15/2010
6691158 E-SERVICE TO MANAGE CONTACT INFORMATION AND TRACK CONTACT LOCATION Hewlett-Packard 2/15/2010
6889213 E-SERVICE TO MANAGE CONTACT INFORMATION WITH PRIVACY LEVELS Hewlett-Packard 2/15/2010
6952730 SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR EFFICIENT FILTERING OF DATA SET ADDRESSES IN A WEB CRAWLER Hewlett-Packard 2/15/2010
7017109 E-SERVICE TO MANAGE CONTACT INFORMATION AND SIGNATURE ECARDS Hewlett-Packard 2/15/2010
7024451 SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR MAINTAINING CONSISTENT INDEPENDENT SERVER-SIDE STATE AMONG COLLABORATING SERVERS Hewlett-Packard 2/15/2010
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