Editor’s Note: This article originally appears in TechCrunch. As software patent litigation ramped up over the past few years, software patents have come under the microscope within the technical community. Manyinvestors and technologists believe that software patents should be abolished all together, while others take the less extreme position that many software patents are obvious over [&hellip
Editor’s Note: This article was originally posted in TechCrunch. In the past few months, Facebook’s patent portfolio has grown exponentially as a result of acquisitions of patent portfolios from IBM and Microsoft. After acquiring 650 AOL patents and patent applications from Microsoft, the company now has approximately 1,400 patent assets. Amazingly, only 46 of these assets (24 issued patents and22 [&hellip
I have written previously that Twitter only has a single published patent application to its name and no patents. The application is the famous pull down to refresh application which was acquired with Twitter’s acquisition of Tweetie. While it is possible that Twitter has other unpublished patent applications pending at the USPTO, it is clear [&hellip
You will read and hear a lot regarding software patents in the aftermath of the lawsuit filed by Yahoo vs Facebook over ten of its patents. For example, Mark Cuban hopes this lawsuit leads to a 50 billion dollar judgment for Yahoo in order to bankrupt Facebook and incite change in the patent system through [&hellip
As you may be aware, the United States Patent & Trademark Office issues new patents every Tuesday. Approximately 8,000 patents are issued by the USPTO every week. Many of these patents are issued to big companies. However, some are granted to startups. I will be highlighting some of these patents here every week. Check back [&hellip
For any entrepreneur starting their company, the reward for a lot of hard work is typically a great new product that hopefully leads to customers, sales and wealth. Of course, the end goal also often includes an exit strategy. Generally, the exit strategy has been to be acquired or to have a successful IPO. The [&hellip
One of the biggest debates leading up to the passage of the America Invents Act, the patent reform law that was signed by president Obama in October, 2011, was its effect on small businesses. Many worried that the first to file provisions of the new patent act would disadvantage small businesses by forcing them to [&hellip
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 [&hellip
Facebook, Groupon, LinkedIn and Twitter are four of the most important startups of the past few years, so their patent portfolios are worth monitoring. How many patents do these four companies have? This morning, the popular Twitterer @counternotions made the following inaccurate tweet: http://twitter.com/#!/counternotions/status
Siri can no longer be considered a startup since it is now part of Apple. However, not long ago, Siri was one of the most exciting young companies participating in the Apple app store. By now, everyone is eagerly anticipating Apple’s new Siri personal assistant in the and about to be released iPhone 4s. It [&hellip