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Major Steal: King.com Poaches Talent Behind EA’s Sims Social To Lead New London Studio

bestcbstore — Tue, 22 May 2012 01:00:32 +0000

King.com , the European-casual-gaming-company-that-could, is cementing its ascendance on the Facebook platform by poaching one of the key producers responsible for EA’s Sims Social and opening a new game development studio in London. The company just hired Catharina Mallet away from EA to lead the new studio, which should have 40 people by year-end. King.com, which started in Sweden and hasn’t taken outside funding since raising $43 million seven years ago , is one of two European gaming companies that have made a serious run on the Facebook platform in the last year. While Zynga has seen its revenue growth slow and other longtime Facebook developers like Crowdstar and Funzio have mostly moved onto mobile games, both King.com and Germany’s Wooga have both climbed up the developer leaderboards. King.com has beat out EA and more recently, Wooga, for the #2 spot among game developers in terms of daily active users on Facebook , according to AppData. The number of game sessions has also blown up by tenfold to 3 billion per month, from 300 million a year ago. The company has a long, long history. It’s almost a decade old and started out building casual games for a destination site at King.com (naturally). That made for a decent business that’s been profitable for seven years. But King.com got turbo-charged when it started building Facebook games too. The company’s long history of building for an independent destination site has given it a few competitive advantages. Launching games outside of Facebook ensures that only the very best and most viral games make it onto the platform. “Because we see which games fail outside of Facebook, what we have managed to do is have a hit-proof business on Facebook,” said chief executive officer Riccardo Zacconi . It’s worth noting that Zynga and many other developers like Kixeye are ironically going in the opposite direction by pouring resources into standalone destination sites. The business now has several legs to stand on. It has a destination site for casual games, Facebook games and then mobile titles. Like Zynga, it makes money through virtual currency sales and advertising. But it also has a third revenue model. The company also recently signed a deal with AOL to provide skilled tournament games. Those are games where players have to pay a very small entry cost (like less than $1) and compete with others. This deal is financially material to King.com, although the company won’t say how much the partnership will bring in. All this said, King.com is starting to feel the competitive heat on Facebook. Zynga recently launched Bubble Safari , which looks a lot like Bubble Witch Saga, King.com’s top game on Facebook. “We have the leading bubble shooter on Facebook. While there are a fair number of copycats popping up, we’re pleased with the continued audience engagement that we get with Bubble Witch Saga,” said chief marketing officer Alex Dale . “We think that will improve further when we launch the game on mobile.” Zacconi adds that King.com’s model is more capital efficient than Zynga’s. “For one of their games, they might need 80 people,” he said. “But Bubble Witch Saga had a team of eight. To launch a new game on the web, we need two people.” He also says that the company hasn’t been feeling the effects that other game developers have as Facebook clamped down on viral channels, notifications and requests for games. He says King.com’s K-factor or viral coefficient is roughly 0.8. “For every user we get, we get almost another one for free,” Zacconi said. Keep in mind though, that number is still way down from the heights of 2008 and 2009, when apps ran wild on the Facebook platform. Other social gaming companies, which still have the institutional memory of that era, have had a harder time coping with the Facebook platform’s new realities. When Mallet comes on-board, she’ll be spearheading the development of casual games. Zacconi stresses that King.com is not going into resource management or sim games. Mallet was of the top producers behind Sims Social and she came to EA through the up to $400 million acquisition of social gaming company Playfish. Over the last year, EA’s social gaming push has faced several management changes. After Zynga poached John Schappert to be chief operating officer, Barry Cottle followed him over to spearhead mergers and acquisitions . That made room for Playfish co-founder Kristian Segerstrale to move up in the ranks and become EA’s executive vice president of digital. Another key Playfish executive, John Earner, recently left to be an entrepreneur in residence at Accel Partners .

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Major Steal: King.com Poaches Talent Behind EA’s Sims Social To Lead New London Studio

About.me Releases Public API, SDK At Disrupt, Now Integrates With Reputation, Smarterer, Forkly, Kred And Showyou

Budowniczy425 — Mon, 21 May 2012 20:00:44 +0000

About.Me is set to get a bit more social. The AOL-owned property just released a public API and SDK into the wild in partnership with Reputation.com, Smarterer, Forkly, Kred and Showyou. While the online profile site already worked with most popular social platforms, today’s announcement is huge for both about.me and their legions of users. Plus, for attendees of Disrupt NYC this week, the company is celebrating the news by having a professional photographer on hand to help create free killer profile pics. Sometimes the simplest ideas are the best. About.me collects a user’s various online identifies and puts them in a single (and beautiful) location. Think of it a splash page for your identity online. Instead of directing people to various locations like LinkedIn, Facebook or Instagram, the idea is to just send them to your about.me page, which neatly collates the rest of your accounts. Here’s mine . I think it’s lovely and only took about five minutes to make. Today’s news makes the first time that about.me has opened up for outside development. Tony Conrad, Ryan Freitas and Tim Young launched the company in 2010, which was then acquired by AOL, TechCrunch’s parent company, a mere four days later . Since then, the company had reserved its API for internal use only. The company foresees its API to be used as an alternative to the traditionally painful task of creating user profiles. For example, if a particular service implements this system, with just one click, the profile will be created automatically from pulling the info from about.me. With the SDK, platforms can add their badge to about.me’s profile pages. As about.me’s Ryan Fuiji explained to me at Disrupt, Smarterer, a launch partner, will integrate test scores on the about.me badge and Kred will display their influence data as well. But there’s still a fundamental problem with the gorgeous about.me layouts: A lot of potential users might not have access to a high-quality user profile images. I only have the one. Thankfully it shows my good side. However, for attendees of Disrupt NYC 2012, about.me is here to help. The company hired a professional photographer that will be around the show Monday through Wednesday. Stop by and get a great looking pic for your about.me profile page.

Brad Garlinghouse Becomes CEO Of Booming File Sharing Site YouSendIt

A D M I N — Tue, 15 May 2012 22:00:47 +0000

Box has been grabbing headlines lately because it has been nailing a big market: enterprise customers who need to easily share and store big collections of documents online. But a quiet Silicon Valley rival has also been winning a bunch of this turf — YouSendIt . Today, the company is backing up its position with some new stats, and a new chief executive, Brad Garlinghouse. He’s coming off a two-year stint as the head of consumer products at AOL, and a previous five years heading up consumer and enterprise apps at Yahoo. He also has roots as an investor and entrepreneur, so this move is going back to that. YouSendIt, meanwhile, says it has 98% of the Fortune 500 companies on it in some form (Box says it has 82%, for whatever this comparison is worth). More importantly, there’s quality revenue in this type of business. YouSendIt has nearly 600,000 paying customers on top of 30 million registered users; revenue has correspondingly shot up from $24.4 million in 2010 to $39.3 million last year. Those numbers are also very competitive with Box and other sharing services, from what I hear. Garlinghouse — who will be on stage at Disrupt New York next week to share more details — says he’s particularly excited about some other data points. Registered users have gone up 71% from the first quarter of 2011, while the paid subscriber growth in the first quarter of 2012 beat the same period the previous year. The company isn’t sharing its revenue run-rate at this point, but these numbers indicate it is going up faster than ever. All this is a big new public view of YouSendIt, which began life way back in 2004, and has managed to grow with little publicity (although TechCrunch has been on the case for years ). One way it did this, as Garlinghouse tells me, was a cleverly placed link in email users would send each other. First a user uploads a file and shares it, then they send an email telling the recipient to go get it on the company’s hosted page. But, the email includes a link that says “click here to register and we’ll store it for you.” At some point after users register and start using the service, they’ll hit the paywall. Garlinghouse is replacing six-year chief executive Ivan Koon (who is widely credited for building the guts of the business). Going forward, the new exec will be doing what some of its rivals have excelled at, which is creating an extremely simple user-facing product, and pushing the company’s brand in public.

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Brad Garlinghouse Becomes CEO Of Booming File Sharing Site YouSendIt

Skullcandy Supreme Sound Hesh 2.0 Headphone Review: Like Vs. Love

Administrator — Sat, 05 May 2012 01:08:48 +0000

There’s a huge difference between like and love. I like cheese, but I love Gruyere. I like beef, but I love filet mignon. I like phones, but I love my iPhone. You get the gist. Long story short, I really like Skullcandy’s latest pair of over-ear mid-range headphones, the Hesh 2.0. But do I love them? Skullcandy has been revamping its roster over the past year, including re-engineering their popular over-ear mid-range headphones. They promise “attacking bass, natural voice, and precision highs.” Where voice and highs are concerned, Skullcandy nailed it. But “attacking bass” is an overstatement. There’s no true thud, no tangible feeling that comes along with the bass on these things. Just a low note, like any other low note. Truth be told, I don’t feel transported to a higher plane of audio ecstasy with these things on my head, but sound quality isn’t bad by any means. I’ve been running around with an older set of Bose over-the-ears for the past few weeks and it’s hard to compete with those noise-cancelling beasts. When I put the Bose cans over my ears, all the excess sound instantly disappears. I’m in my own little suction cup of silence, until I turn on the tunes, at which point I can feel the bass buzzing through my brain. On the other hand, the Hesh headphones are certainly loud enough for just about any setting, including a subway platform, but passersby won’t have any line of defense from your tune choices. I made the mistake of listening to “Superman” by Eminem on the crowded elevator in AOL HQ this morning at full volume — I’m sure I’m only more popular now. I don’t get the same kind of satisfaction from the Skullcandy Hesh 2.0 as I do with my Bose cans, but I also don’t pay as much. The Skullcandy Hesh headphones only cost $69.99 with a mic, and $59.99 without, as opposed to the $250+ set of Bose. That said, sound quality is perfectly acceptable at this price point. Comfort-wise, I’m pretty pleased. I wish the headphones cupped my ears a bit more tightly — feels like there is a little pocket of space that sound escapes through. The leather pillow cups are nice, weight isn’t an issue at 180g, and the soft-touch headband is properly flexible. The Skullcandy Hesh 2.0 headphones come in a variety of color flavors, a few of which you can see below. Availability begins May 7 on Skullcandy.com . Click to view slideshow.

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Skullcandy Supreme Sound Hesh 2.0 Headphone Review: Like Vs. Love

Some Guys Have All The Luck: HTC One X Hitting Doorsteps Ahead Of Schedule

A D M I N — Sat, 05 May 2012 00:58:23 +0000

Sure, AT&T’s One X will officially hit store shelves this Sunday, but you may be in for an early weekend treat if you’ve taken it upon yourself to pre-order the thing. According to a handful of reports from AndroidCentral’s and Phandroid’s forums, some lucky HTC fans have already received their new Android handsets well in advance of the device’s official launch. It’s a common story, really — just about every time a hotly-awaited phone nears launch, it seems like some lucky son-of-a-gun manages to score one thanks to an overeager delivery person. Take another glance at your device’s order status (most likely though UPS if you ordered from AT&T) if you haven’t yet to see if your One X is set to land on your doorstep today. Those first few moments with the One X could be a little rough, if these early reports are any indication — some unlucky AT&T customers are reporting longer-than-usual activation times. C’est la vie. Of course, I get the feeling some of you may be rueing your decision to pre-order — if you’re always on the lookout for new and shiny hardware (and since you’re reading TechCrunch, there’s a good chance you fall into that category), Samsung’s newly-revealed Galaxy S III may be more up your alley. It may not have been the monumental leap forward some were hoping for — the expectations game is a real pain to manage — but it’s certainly going to be a real contender going forward. Samsung Mobile head JK Shin remarked at the device’s launch event in London yesterday that the LTE version of the device would land in U.S. over the summer, and The Verge managed to lock that launch date down to sometime this June. Like HTC’s flagship, Samsung’s new smartphone is expected to land on multiple carriers’ sales channels in one form or another, so it’s a great time for customers to prowl for potential upgrades.

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Some Guys Have All The Luck: HTC One X Hitting Doorsteps Ahead Of Schedule

“AdSense For Local Commerce” Signpost Raises $3.75M From Spark Capital

Achilles — Tue, 01 May 2012 16:30:55 +0000

Local advertising startup, and recent Google Offers partner , Signpost is announcing its Series A funding round this morning to the tune of $3.75 million, led by Spark Capital . Other angels also participated in the round, but the company isn’t disclosing names. This new round is in addition to previous funding of $1.25 million, which included an investment from Google Ventures . The company is also announcing a new hire today: Christopher DePatria, who most recently led AOL’s Patch sales force. DePatria started his career at Yahoo, where he was the youngest director at age 25, managing a sales team of 40. Just prior to joining Signpost, he worked at Patch, where he scaled the sales force to 80 reps. (Patch and TechCrunch are both AOL properties). And before Patch, DePatria was at Yodle, where he was involved with direct sales, sales management and planning. At Signpost, DePatria’s title will be VP of Revenue, putting him in charge of its sales operation and revenue strategy, which includes overseeing and scaling the sales force. That sales force is about to grow quickly, too. Signpost’s CEO Stuart Wall says the company is adding 25 to its sales team (now just seven folks) during this quarter alone. For a company totaling only 24, that’s a big jump. For a bit of background on Signpost, the startup is focused on operating what’s basically an “AdSense for local commerce.” Businesses use Signpost for access to its 1,200 partners (including Google Offers), to run their marketing campaigns on both web and mobile. Wall notes that around 93% of merchants renew with the service monthly, a testament to the success they’re seeing with the product, which is more about bringing in “quality” customers than it is about targeting them with daily deals. Wall says merchants on Signpost are moving away from daily deal outlets, like Groupon and LivingSocial. “There’s a realization that you might get a thousand customers from one of the daily deal sites, but probably less than a hundred of them ever come back. So that’s not worth the investment,” says Wall. “We’re increasingly focused on platforms that reach a more targeted group of consumers, which means lower volume but higher quality,” he says. In addition, Signpost is focused on helping merchants with so-called “utilization offers,” meaning offers that are targeting customers during slow periods. The offers run online and/or on mobile, depending on the businesses’ needs. However, with this latter category, mobile offers make sense, given access to location-based services on mobile devices. Prior to closing the funding round, Signpost recently rolled out several new features targeted towards its merchant customers, including a new website, cleaner emails, and a more powerful merchant center with improved analytics reporting. The company added comparison metrics for viewing Signpost’s performance alongside averages from other services, like Google and Yelp. Also new is integration with Constant Contact and MailChimp, support for rewarding customers for their Yelp reviews, and a feature that lets Signpost add a tab to a company’s Facebook page. With new funding in tow, Walls says the focus is now on improvements to the publisher side of the business. While he couldn’t get into specifics, the overall goal is making the process easy on their side, with little to no technical integration, a good user experience, incremental monetization, and no need to build a sales force. Signpost doesn’t talk total merchant customers at this time, but says that since January (when it shifted to the monthly subscription plan offering), it has added 3,500 merchants. And while there is a bit of churn, says Wall, “the majority stick around.”

Facebook Now Lets Users Identify Themselves As Organ Donors

Administrator — Tue, 01 May 2012 16:06:12 +0000

Facebook has been credited with helping to power the ‘Arab Spring’ movement of democracy, and in further ‘we plan to save the world’ news, it is now unveiling a new feature: tell the world you’re an organ donor. Starting today, you can add that you’re an organ donor to your timeline, and share your story about when, where or why you decided to become a donor, says Facebook . If you’re not already registered with a U.S. state or national organ donation registry, they are linking to the official donor registry as well. However, support for sharing that you are an organ donor in another country outside the U.S. is very patchy. “London” is not recognised, although “Londonderry” is. Cardiff returns a blank, though it’s fine if you happen to be in “Moscow City, Russia”. Maybe all it’s based on where you’re more likely to be injured? Go figure. Update: The UK’s National Health Service Blood and Transplant department says it has today joined the Facebook scheme via a form that sits on the NHSBT Facebook page . There will be a link to the signup form that will appear as the person adds the ‘organ donor’ life event to their Timeline. So presumably if you join that scheme then you are able to go back and then add that you are a donor with that scheme to your timeline – hence why the links to these schemes are currently patchy I guess. Here’s Facebook’s full post. Organ Donation: Friends Saving Lives May 01, 2012 Facebook is about connecting and sharing – connecting with your friends, family and communities, and sharing information with them about your life, work, school and interests. On any given day more than half a billion people share billions of stories, updates and photos. What has amazed us over the past eight years is how people use these same tools and social dynamics to address important issues and challenges in their communities. Last year in Missouri, Facebook users tracked down and returned treasured mementos to families who thought they’d lost everything in the Joplin tornado. In Japan, people used Facebook to locate family and friends following the 2011 earthquake and tsunami. Smaller acts of kindness happen millions of times a day on Facebook. We never could have anticipated that what started as a small network would evolve into such a powerful tool for communication and problem solving. As this happens, we hope to build tools that help people transform the way we all solve worldwide social problems. Today, more than 114,000 people in the United States, and millions more around the globe, are waiting for the heart, kidney or liver transplant that will save their lives. Many of those people – an average of 18 people per day – will die waiting, because there simply aren’t enough organ donors to meet the need. Medical experts believe that broader awareness about organ donation could go a long way toward solving this crisis. And we believe that by simply telling people that you’re an organ donor, the power of sharing and connection can play an important role. Starting today, you can add that you’re an organ donor to your timeline, and share your story about when, where or why you decided to become a donor. If you’re not already registered with your state or national registry and want to be, you’ll find a link to the official donor registry there as well.

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Facebook Now Lets Users Identify Themselves As Organ Donors

Juniper Research: Samsung Shipped More Smartphones, But Apple’s Making More Money

Budowniczy425 — Tue, 01 May 2012 15:57:21 +0000

In mobile world, bigger is not always better. That can be the case for specs , and it can also be the case for market share: and a report out today from Juniper Research highlights a case in point for the latter: Samsung was the biggest smartphone maker in terms of global shipments in Q1 2012, but when it came to making money, Apple was still on top. In Q1, Samsung is estimated to have shipped 46.9 million smartphones, compared to Apple’s 35.1 million iPhone devices. When considering revenues, however, the tables turn: Apple’s mobile revenues (which include the iPad) were $29.3 billion, while Samsung’s (which include all its mobile products, including feature phones) were just over half of that amount: $17 billion. And while Apple is beating Samsung in terms of pure revenue, it’s likely also to be beating Samsung in terms of profitability of those devices. When Apple reported another blockbuster quarter when it released its earnings last week, it noted that its gross margin had reached 47.4 percent. Samsung’s margin , on the other hand, was at 12.9 percent. Juniper, a UK-based research group, notes that although Apple and Samsung have “taken it in turns” to lead the market, it appears that Samsung has now established itself as the bigger player in volumes. The back-and-forth between the two also is a sign of their collective power at the moment: together, the pair snapped up nearly 60 percent of the whole smartphone market, which totaled 139 million units for the quarter. In Q4, the market share of Apple+Samsung was only 46 percent — which is a measure also of how rapidly others (most notably RIM and Nokia) have declined over that time. Unless Apple throws us a curve ball and launches another new device before the WWDC in June, it looks like Samsung will continue to remain in the lead for shipments in this quarter. That will be on the strength of its wide portfolio, covering a range of price points, as well as new launches. Case in point: it’s gearing up for the official launch of its newest Android powerhouse, the Galaxy SIII, later this week. The graphic above, depicting market shares for different mobile brands, tells a pretty stark story about what has happened to competitors as Apple and Samsung have gone up, but the game is far from over for the other players, notes Juniper analyst Daniel Ashdown. Yes, Nokia only shipped 11.9 million smartphones in the quarter — less than one-third of Apple’s number; the numbers for RIM, which reports on a different schedule, are not likely to be encouraging, either; and HTC has stopped giving out sales volumes altogether. But since Juniper believes the smartphone market will account for 1.1 billion devices shipped by 2017 — up from 600 million in 2012 — these players still have a shot to turn things around.

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Juniper Research: Samsung Shipped More Smartphones, But Apple’s Making More Money

Facebook’s Patent Acquisitions? They’re More About Google Than Yahoo

vertical8 — Sat, 28 Apr 2012 10:00:50 +0000

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 and 22 published applications ) were originally filed by Facebook. In recent years, Facebook has consistently looked to the outside to augment its IP holdings with strategic acquisitions of patent assets. The company paid 40 million for the Friendster social networking patent portfolio , acquired a group of patents from Walker Digital, and another from Hewlett-Packard. These deals expanded the portfolio to approximately 160 patent assets prior to Yahoo’s lawsuit being filed. After Facebook’s IPO decision, and the subsequent patent suit by Yahoo, Facebook has kicked its patent acquisition program into overdrive. Many point to the Yahoo lawsuit as the reason for the Microsoft and IBM acquisitions. The the AOL portfolio could useful to Facebook in defending itself against Yahoo. However, now Yahoo is trying to have other patents Facebook bought after being sued by the web portal invalidated because Facebook purchased them specifically to use in a retaliatory counter-suit. In any case, it would have been significantly cheaper for Facebook to settle with Yahoo instead of taking this aggressive approach. So who is Facebook so worried about that it would spend so much on buying intellectual property? The types of patents being acquired tell part of the story. Facebook has emphasized acquiring older assets, which it could not have developed on its own. Facebook’s oldest patent was filed in 2004, the same year the company was created. A typical patent application currently takes approximately 3-4 years to be issued. Developing a patent portfolio in the social networking space is challenging because the popularity of social networking companies has resulted in the space being littered with both patent and non-patent prior art. As a result, companies, such as Facebook, that initially largely ignored growing their IP portfolios, cannot rely on filing its own applications to develop a substantive IP portfolio. The IBM and AOL patent acquisitions give Facebook access to IP that is significantly older than Facebook’s own IP. Older patents are subject to fewer prior art, making them more difficult to defend against. In addition, older patents provide leverage for the asserting party by allowing collection of up to six years of damages from the infringer. Such patents are therefore especially helpful in dealing with established parties having significant resources and sophisticated legal teams. The technology areas of the IBM and AOL patents are also telling. The patents Facebook acquired from IBM are rumored to be in the networking and software space. AOL’s patents are largely directed to email, instant messaging, web browsing, search, ads, mobile, & ecommerce . Together, these are technology areas that Facebook likely never expected to find itself competing in when the company was first founded because it may not have realized that their product would evolve into the messaging/advertising/ecommerce platform that it is today. These are also technology areas that are core to Google, one of Facebook’s biggest threats. In the past year, Google introduced Google+ , a direct competitor and challenger to Facebook. While Google+ has only had moderate success to date, Facebook likely felt exposed against Google’s significantly larger and ever-expanding patent portfolio. These patent acquisitions provide Facebook with some protection as the competition between the two companies heats up. In addition, the rumors of an Android-based Facebook phone have been revived, which could bring Facebook directly into the litigious mobile space, where Google is one of the main players. Interestingly, this is not the first time that Facebook and Microsoft have worked together with Google in mind. In October 2007, the two companies entered into an Internet advertising partnership. That deal was seen as a way for Microsoft to counter Google’s Internet advertising position. It makes sense that the two companies would again collaborate to respond to a potential threat from Google. Thus, while the acquisitions may be helpful to Facebook in dealing with Yahoo, it is likely that these acquisitions have less to do with Yahoo than with Facebook’s anticipation of future litigation. Specifically, Facebook appears to be preparing for increased competition with Google. It bears watching whether the companies will look to their patent acquisitions as part of this strategy. Of course, such protection has the added benefit of helping to increase Facebook’s IPO value, making this decision a no-brainer for the company.

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Facebook’s Patent Acquisitions? They’re More About Google Than Yahoo

Yahoo: Facebook Bought Patents Just To Countersue, They Lack Good Faith, Should Be Disregarded

jos — Sat, 28 Apr 2012 00:29:01 +0000

Counter-countersuit! Yahoo today claimed that the patents Facebook is countering its original patent infringement lawsuit against the social network with “were acquired by Facebook for purposes of retaliation”, and therefore violate the U.S. Patent Office’s “Duty of Disclosure, Candor, and Good Faith” and should be diregarded by the court. Yahoo also claims Facebook couldn’t legally know enough about its business to know if it was violating Facebook’s patents, that several of Facebook’s new patents were illegally filed, and Yahoo also filed two more advertising patent infringement claims against Facebook. Facebook responds that “We remain perplexed by Yahoo’s erratic actions. We disagree with these latest claims and we will continue to defend ourselves vigorously.” If a court agrees that Facebook can’t countersue with patents bought specifically for the countersuit, Facebook could be left wide-open in settlement negotiations, and might have to pay Yahoo a hefty sum of cash and/or stock. A statement from Yahoo details its position, while also using the word “innovation” to try to seem less troll-like: “Today’s filing underscores the breadth of Facebook’s violation of Yahoo!’s intellectual property. As we have stated previously, Yahoo!’s technologies are the foundation of our business that engages over 700 million monthly unique visitors and represent the spirit of innovation upon which Yahoo! is built. We intend to vigorously protect these technologies for our customers and shareholders.” Oddly, when Facebook bought AOL patents from Microsoft last week, Yahoo said “ Companies who purchase patents are often working from a position of weakness and take these actions to strengthen their portfolio.” However, the two new patent infringement lawsuits it filed today and several of the original ten are based on patents Yahoo itself had purchased in the acquisition of Overture. Here are Yahoo’s counter-counterclaims and what they mean for the case: Facebook’s Patent Countersuit Not In Good Faith Yahoo says of the ten patents Facebook countersued with: “Eight of these patents were purchased by Facebook in the past five months, and several of these patents were purchased (independent of any separate technology acquisition or merger) after Yahoo! filed its complaint in this action. On information and belief, many, if not all, of these patents were acquired by Facebook for purposes of retaliation against Yahoo! in this case. No employee or officer of Facebook or any affiliated company conceived of, reduced to practice, or developed the alleged inventions claimed in the eight patents acquired from non-practicing entities. In fact, the applications for many of these patents predate Facebook itself. These could therefore be ruled to lack “good faith”, be thrown out, leaving Facebook nothing to offset Yahoo’s infringement claims with. Facebook Failed To Inform Yahoo Of IP Issues Before Countersuing Yahoo Says: Contrary to an agreement between in-house counsel for Facebook and in-house counsel for Yahoo! to raise intellectual property issues with each other in the first instance, Facebook provided no notice to Yahoo! of any alleged infringement, and Facebook never attempted to resolve any alleged infringement of any of its patents by Yahoo! prior to asserting them in litigation. Indeed, the PTO did not even issue U.S. Patent No. 8,150,913 until April 3, 2012—the day Facebook asserted it. This break in the agreement, and that fact that Facebook countersued with patents issued and that it had bought that day could lend weight to Yahoo’s previous claim that Facebook’s countersuit lacks “good faith”. View this document on Scribd

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Yahoo: Facebook Bought Patents Just To Countersue, They Lack Good Faith, Should Be Disregarded