Friendster lands a third patent
Social-networking pioneer Friendster said Thursday it has received its third U.S. patent in the past nine months, another attempt to bolster its profitability.
Patent No. 7,188,153 B2, which covers "System and Method for Managing Connections in an Online Social Network," was awarded officially by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office on March 6.
Friendster's first patent, covering "A System, Method and Apparatus for Connecting Users in an Online Computer System Based on Their Relationships within Social Networks," was granted in July 2006. In October 2006, it landed a second patent called "Method of Inducing Content Uploads in a Social Network," which is related to the process of adding text, video, pictures and additional content to other users' profiles.
"These three patents address some fundamentals of online networking: establishing connections, distributing and sharing content, and managing connections over time," David Jones, vice president of marketing, said in a statement Thursday.
The San Francisco-based company plans to continue making patent filings, in hopes of "growing a very large, global business into an even larger and highly profitable one," Jones added. He did not disclose any immediate plans to bring infringement suits or assert the company's patents against rivals.
Friendster, which launched as a "social experiment" in 2003, counts more than 40 million users worldwide and more than 19 million unique visitors per month, according to a company press release.
