When Facebook hit Yahoo back with their own claim for patent infringement, Yahoo claimed that Facebook made fraudulent claims on some of their patents. In reality, they didn’t even check court records to verify.
Back in late April, Yahoo filed a motion with the federal judge in the case requesting the patents that Facebook countersued with be thrown out on the grounds that they were “tainted by inequitable conduct”. In other words, Facebook failed to mention the name of known inventors, and added new information to already filed patents.
As ZDNet reports, on at least one of those claims, Yahoo never even bothered to look at the documents that prove Facebook’s innocence.
The patent in question, for a “controlled distribution of user profiles over a network”, was filed by Chris Chea, under his name. Yahoo claimed that it should be declared invalid because Joseph Liauw was named under the first patent filing but not on the second.
Yahoo said that this was misleading and intentionally deceptive, adding that the only way to get his name removed from the patent was through a signed affidavit. Only problem is, they never actually checked to see if an affidavit was signed. Which it was.
Facebook’s statement posted on AllThingsDigital:
“Yahoo claims that two of the ten patents Facebook asserts are unenforceable due to inequitable conduct. But all of these allegations are unsupportable and/or deficient. First, Yahoo claims these patents do not list Joseph Liauw as an inventor and that there is no sworn statement by Mr. Liauw in the Patent Office records explaining his omission.
Yahoo’s claim is demonstrably false. Yahoo made this allegation without actually reviewing the publically available Patent Office records, because these records include the exact sworn statement from Mr. Liauw Yahoo claims is missing.”
This is what happens when you don’t do your homework, boys and girls.
The judge should allow all of Facebook’s patents to go through, just based on this one incident. It is clear that they are making outlandish claims that have no basis in reality. For Yahoo to claim that Facebook is being deceptive, when they just aren’t doing their jobs puts a black mark on the legitimacy of Yahoo’s claims. Not Facebook’s.
