Twitter Sued Over Patent Violations

[Logan Westbrook]

Twitter Sued Over Patent Violations

An American company that invented a system for sending messages en masse is suing Twitter for violating several patents it holds.

Texas firm TechRadium is suing Twitter for an unspecified amount of damages as well as a permanent injunction, claiming that Twitter wilfully infringed on three of its patents, causing a loss of earnings for TechRadium.

At the heart of the lawsuit is TechRadium's IRIS system, which allows administrators to send messages to multiple recipients in a format of their choice. TechRadium had licensed the technology to customers including the US Army and the San Antonio Independent School District.

The patents in question all relate to distributing messages over multiple networks and to a casual observer - like me for example - all seem pretty similar.

George Borkowski, chairman of the intellectual property practice at Venable LLP in Los Angeles, said Twitter will probably claim that the patents are too generic, and therefore invalid:

"If this case moves forward, obviously what Twitter is going to do is argue that the patents are not valid and that the Patent Office should not have granted them," Borkowski said, but then added "there is a presumption of validity when a patent is issued."

The full details of the lawsuit, including the three patents in question, can be found here. [http://www.wired.com/images_blogs/threatlevel/2009/08/twitterlawsuit.pdf]

Source: Wired [http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2009/08/lawsuit-twitter-method-infringes-patents/]


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[Neesa]

I can not stand Twitter. I have no idea how people are so fascinated with just using a "status update" all the time. It's just silly. I never liked Twitter and the stupid vocab. "Omg. I just tweeted you!" Ughhh, please spare me.

 

[JRCB]

Why did they choose now to sue them? Shouldn't they have done it earlier so it would be easier? And if this causes Twitter to go under, how will so many Escapists chat with each other?

 

[black lincon]

Good thing I don't use or care about twitter in the least.

 

[HardRockSamurai]

Personally, I hate Twitter, but I can see how this could be a problem. Twitter has become so entwined with popular media, that if it does go under, the internet will be forced to undergo some massive changes.

Any word if this will affect the upcoming update to the Xbox 360 dashboard?

 

[Zayren]

Their case seems pretty weak, but I hope they win.

 

[grimsprice]

I can not stand Twitter. I have no idea how people are so fascinated with just using a "status update" all the time. It's just silly. I never liked Twitter and the stupid vocab. "Omg. I just tweeted you!" Ughhh, please spare me.

strange. i always said ''kill me quickly, please.'' yay for self absorbed pretentious twee-teens. oh and you should check out http://tweetingtoohard.com/

 

[Proteus214]

Isn't this the same company that's going around suing whoever it can because they found a weakness in a certain patent law that pertains to one of their products?

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

Why did they choose now to sue them? Shouldn't they have done it earlier so it would be easier? And if this causes Twitter to go under, how will so many Escapists chat with each other?

My immediate thought. It's funny how these patents come out now that something gets popular. My American legal knowledge may be out of date, but doesn't the Patent Registration mean that you must actively seek legal action against any company that challenges your patents as soon as you are aware of it; not just when they become million dollar companies?

 

[brabz]

I still think Leo Laporte has the biggest gripe to settle up with Twitter. His show "TWiT" and his twitheads weekly video podcast on new technology had their name pretty well directly ripped off.

 

[AceDiamond]

Yeah sorry but I don't side with vultures who wait until something becomes popular to sue it.

Also Twitter really isn't as bad as some make it out to be. Yes there are some truly annoying people out there on it but there's also people in the film, game, and other industries (example: I'm following everyone involved with Rifftrax right now, then again more for the novelty than anything)

 

[Doc Theta Sigma]

First they were DDoS'd and now this... Not turning out to be a good day for the folks at Twitter

 

[ChromeAlchemist]

Well I guess if Twitter goes under you can just go on Facebook and use only the status updates.

I kid, and I don't agree with the fact that they waited for Twitter to become big before they sprung this. While they may have a good case, I'm going to side with Twitter at this point, I'm thinking of the children, and while it's the nature of the business, still don't agree with the way they went about this.

 

[ender214]

I think we all know this will end with Twitter coughing up some money and then proceed to continue moving along, just like what happens every single time a major website was sued.

 

[Volucer]

Never really got the point of Twitter, a couple of friends set up accounts to see what it was all about and their responces were along the lines of "what is the point?" and "it's just status updates". There's better social networking sites out there.

 

[AceDiamond]

Never really got the point of Twitter, a couple of friends set up accounts to see what it was all about and their responces were along the lines of "what is the point?" and "it's just status updates". There's better social networking sites out there.

Except they all keep becoming these massive schitzophrenic blobs of things like apps and videos and so on and so forth, while Twitter remains almost exquisite in its simplicity. And I never thought I'd ever say that about something that my first exposure to was someone going "I'm eating a sandwich"

 

[geldonyetich]

Seems like a callous use of previous parents...

and yet

...would I really feel all that bad about a social networking service, by nature being at least of callous of a device to entangle people, were financially crucified?