Facebook succeeds in attempt to reduce patent suit

Social media company Facebook has succeeded in its attempt to reduce a patent-owning company’s infringement lawsuit filed against it.

Sound View Innovations filed the suit in February this year, claiming that Facebook infringed US patent numbers 5,991,845; 6,125,371; 6,732,181; 7,366,786; 7,412,486; 8,135,860; and 8,095,593.

The ‘593 patent was found to be invalid under the US Supreme Court’s Alice v CLS Bank ruling by Judge Richard Andrews, of the US District Court for the District of Delaware, in his opinion filed yesterday, August 30.

Back in April, Facebook had argued that the ‘593 patent’s claims consisted of patent-ineligible subject matter.

The patent relates to managing electronic “community interest” or “community information preference” information.

Andrews said that the patent was abstract and does not contain an inventive concept.

“The asserted claims of the ‘593 patent thus are directed to the concept of offering more meaningful information to an individual based on his own preferences and the preferences of a group of people with whom he is in pre-defined relationships. The claimed concept is abstract,” he said.

The remaining patents have yet to be ruled on.