A lawsuit has been filed against Facebook in a federal court in Virginia by Rembrandt Social Media. The lawsuit claims Zuckerberg stole the idea of the ?like? and ?share? buttons from late Dutch programmer Joannes Jozef Everardus van Der Meer.
Van der Meer?s party stands behind their statement that their 1998 patent is nearly identical versions of Facebook?s ?like? and ?share? functions, which would have been six years before Zuckerberg launched his company.
?Although Mark Zuckerberg did not start what became Facebook until 2004, it bears a remarkable resemblance, both in terms of its functionality and technical implementation, to the personal Web page diary that van Der Meer had invented years earlier,? court documents said.
According to a report by NY Daily News, Rembrandt Social Media now holds the patents obtained by van der Meer, who died in 2004 shortly after he built a now-defunct social network called Surfbook.
?We believe Rembrandt?s patents represent an important foundation of social media as we know it, and we expect a judge and jury to reach the same conclusion based on the evidence,? said a release from Tom Melsheimer, an attorney with Fish & Richardson, the firm representing the Dutch company.
In court documents, Rembrandt?s lawyers plan on arguing that Facebook was conscious of the existence of its patents and had even cited them in its own patent applications.
?The way the patent laws work ? and have worked for 200 years ? is that when someone else uses it ? whether intentionally or unintentionally ? they owe a reasonable royalty,? Melsheimer told technology publication?Ars Technica.
Facebook has declined to comment on the lawsuit.
Source: NY Daily News
Source: http://www.dailydealmedia.com/346facebook-faces-more-legal-woes/
No comments:
Post a Comment