Facebook to counter sue Yahoo (rumor)
Yahoo this week sued Facebook for allegedly infringing on 10 of its patents, with the hopes of securing some portion of the social networking giant's revenues moving forward. The lawsuit didn't come completely out of the blue, since last month Yahoo threatened Facebook with patent war and then a rumor suggested the talks had fallen apart. Facebook is planning to fight Yahoo, and while its legal response isn't fully formulated yet, the company has enough patents in its portfolio to hit back at Yahoo, according to sources cited by GigaOM.
Yahoo has thousands of patents while Facebook has 62, according to the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). Those are the ones that have been filed in each of the companies' names; both firms have more patents each, but either way Yahoo has significantly more than Facebook.
Some say Facebook should just buy Yahoo. Others think Microsoft should come to Facebook's rescue.
Typically in situations like this one, the company being sued looks through its own patent portfolio, files a counter lawsuit, and negotiates to pay (or receive) some money, and the two agree to settle. The problem is Facebook has very few patents. As such, it will be very hard for Facebook to settle with Yahoo, but apparently that's the route Facebook is planning to take, according to this new rumor. We'll see soon enough how Facebook will play its hand, but the final decision will likely be drawn out, as with any patent battle.
See also:
- Yahoo sues Facebook over 10 patents
- Yahoo threatens Facebook with patent war
- Yahoo redesigns search results pages, adds more Facebook
- Yahoo redesigns image search, adds a dedicated Facebook tab
- Bing adds more Facebook features to Social Search
- Microsoft puts Facebook into Bing Bar
- Microsoft starts providing search results to Yahoo