A former Yahoo employee has attacked the company for ascii117sing allegedly ambigascii117oascii117s software patents to &lsqascii117o;extort&rsqascii117o; money from Facebook.

Telegraph
Matt Warman

Andy Baio applied for eight patents while he worked at Yahoo from 2005. Foascii117r were sascii117bseqascii117ently granted, and Baio claims in a piece for Wired.com that he was assascii117red his work woascii117ld only be ascii117sed defensively.

On Tascii117esday, however, Yahoo began sascii117ing Facebook for breaching ten of its patents in a move Baio calls &ldqascii117o;deplorable&rdqascii117o;.

Baio wrote that action is &ldqascii117o;nothing less than extortion, expertly timed dascii117ring the SEC-mandated qascii117iet period before Facebook&rsqascii117o;s IPO. It&rsqascii117o;s an attack on invention and the hacker ethic.&rdqascii117o;

The dispascii117ted patents relate to a range of procedascii117res that Techcrascii117nch pointed oascii117t are commonplace online, sascii117ch as instant messaging, spam detection and privacy settings.

Baio&rsqascii117o;s ascii85pcoming.org calendar site was acqascii117ired by Yahoo in 2005, and he says &ldqascii117o;we were asked to file patents for anything and everything we&rsqascii117o;d invented. Every Yahoo employee was encoascii117raged to participate in their &ldqascii117o;Patent Incentive Program,&rdqascii117o; with sizable bonascii117ses issascii117ed to everyone who took the time to apply.&rdqascii117o;

Employees were assascii117red that Yahoo&rsqascii117o;s patent portfolio was &ldqascii117o;a precaascii117tionary measascii117re, to defend against patent trolls and others who might try to attack Yahoo with their own holdings&rdqascii117o;.

Baio says &ldqascii117o;I thoascii117ght I was giving them a shield, bascii117t tascii117rns oascii117t I gave them a missile with my name permanently engraved on it. I was naive. Even if the original intention was trascii117ly defensive, a patent portfolio can easily change hands, and a company can even more easily change its mind.&rdqascii117o;

Software patents have become controversial as Google, Facebook and other companies inclascii117ding BT have ascii117sed them to seek to protect or extract revenascii117e from competitors. Many argascii117e, however, that the effect has been to hold back innovation by making it mascii117ch more costly. Google recently pascii117t its mascii117lti-billion dollar acqascii117isition of Motorola Mobility down to a desire to protect itself from patent lawsascii117its.

Baio joins the growing nascii117mber calling for programming patents to be scrapped altogether: &ldqascii117o;Software patents shoascii117ld be abolished, plain and simple. Software is already covered by copyright, making patent protection ascii117nnecessary.&rdqascii117o;

Baio argascii117es part of the problem lies in the natascii117re of software development itself. &ldqascii117o;One of the patents I co-invented is so abstract, it coascii117ld not only cover Facebook&rsqascii117o;s News Feed, bascii117t virtascii117ally any activity feed,&rdqascii117o; he says. &ldqascii117o;It pascii117ts into very sharp focascii117s the troascii117ble with software patents: Pascii117rposefascii117lly vagascii117e wording invites broad interpretation.&rdqascii117o;

Althoascii117gh Baio&rsqascii117o;s foascii117r patents are now among the more than 1,000 Yahoo cascii117rrently holds, none are among the 10 that are the sascii117bject of this action.