Facebook Wins Patent Battle (Media Tagging)

[Joshua Tucker]

Users of Facebook know and have most likely used the tagging feature that Facebook has to offer. Tagging faces and people in photos is what set Facebook apart and was truly Facebook's first push of innovation (beyond the platform itself). Facebook has been battling for almost five years to gain the patent rights to tagging photos and the features along with it, and has finally won.

According to Inside Facebook, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office awarded Facebook a patent for selecting a piece of media (e.g. photo/video) and having the ability to reference a person or entity in it. Mark Zuckerberg, Aaron Sittig, and Scott Marlette were credited as the inventors during the case. The premise of "tagging people" in photos was one of the factors that convinced the founders to start a platform like Facebook Zuckerberg says.

Due to the success of photo tagging, Facebook opened up opportunities for developers to create and design other features that are now prominent to Facebook's interface. Because of this, Facebook also won a patent for "gifting" or the giving of gifts in a social network environment. Facebook applied for four other search-related patents in the last month and they regard social proximity and information of that nature. Because of the growing popularity and status of Facebook, it would not be a surprise if Facebook was to continue to gain patents and other trademarks as the social-network boom has in no way hit the ceiling.

Source(s) Inside Facebook

[godfred212]

Well it's awesome so why not

[wolverinemarky]

wow pretty shocked there credited with inventing tagging

[alexevo]

i'm not shocked. can't think of another instance in which "tagging" was done the same as facebook does it. sure you can put a caption but anyone can figure that out and you can't patent captions. actually having the person's name show up when you hover over the picture was/is unique to facebook. they do it with ads so it was only a matter of time before someone figured out how to do it with pictures and names and patent it.

[Quaddy]

wow, this is strange, i was doing something akin in ~1999 on websites, with photos - i forget the name for the process now, but you could create co-ordinates (like a photoshop selection) and enable infotips on hover via the delineated boundaries used.

it was used for presenting a large photo on a website but with the ability to invisibly or otherwise, section off areas into different hyperlinks

a bit similar i guess. wish i could remember the name for the html process. someone on here will know i am sure.

[Prkid93]

i'm not shocked. can't think of another instance in which "tagging" was done the same as facebook does it. sure you can put a caption but anyone can figure that out and you can't patent captions. actually having the person's name show up when you hover over the picture was/is unique to facebook. they do it with ads so it was only a matter of time before someone figured out how to do it with pictures and names and patent it.

If im not mistaken.. Myspace used to do it also, and so did myyearbook...

[MooMoo92]

Sure others may have had a similar "tagging" ability, but with Facebook you can actually put a name to the face, rather than just list the people who appear on the bottom of the photo as other websites have previously done.

[steve-z17]

The Winklevoss twins are going to try and sue claiming they invented Tagging first..

[GeoffS4]

Soooo, what does this have to do with iProducts? Why is this on modmyi?

[maddawg05]

Nothing to do with apple.

[Joshua Tucker]

Soooo, what does this have to do with iProducts? Why is this on modmyi?

It was article that sounded fascinating and of interest to readers. A little variety never hurts my friend.

[lilljav]

The Winklevoss twins are going to try and sue claiming they invented Tagging first..

Lmao!!

[epignosis567]

Really? They invented pointing your friends out in pictures?
I hate this ******* country and it's patent office. This is on par with those idiots who thought they could patent yoga positions.

[whereswaldo]

what does this have to do with apple?

[Sanady361]

The Winklevoss twins are going to try and sue claiming they invented Tagging first..

Lmao!