Facebook Awarded 1 of Its 35 Patent Applications -- Significance Unclear

Facebook has been busy filing patent applications for years, with the number coming to 35 as of October 26, 2008, when it submitted one for the “resource management of social network applications.” The United States Patent Office also awarded it a patent yesterday, for “dynamically providing a newsfeed about a user of a social network.” But the implications of the awarded patent — and the pending applications — are not clear.

Many commenters are concerned that Facebook is obtaining patents for concepts that it did not invent, and stifling innovation on the web as a result (read more about that on Techmeme).

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