Document Security Systems Enters Massive Lawsuit Against Facebook - Article Example

Document Security Systems Enters Massive Lawsuit against Facebook Bascom Research, LLC, an entirely owned branch of Lexington Technology Group, Inc. is seeking a legal suit for infringement of a patent against five major social and commercial networking firms inclusive of Facebook, Inc., and LinkedIn Corp in the District court of the United States in the Virginian Eastern District. There are numerous patents that are at stake as far social and commercial networking technology is concerned. The appellants strongly believe that the social and commercial networking firms are violating their patents according to the CEO of the group Mr.

Will Rosellini. There are allegations that the appellant firms had pioneered the technology, which was patented at the beginning of 2001 way before Facebook and other defendants came into the social networking technology industry. The patent entailed the main aspects of online collaboration and networking connection. At the onset of this week Document Security Systems, Inc. (DSS, NYSE MKT) which is a pioneer in anti-counterfeit, substantiation and mass-certification technologies declared that it had gone into agreement on a descriptive arrangement to join with Lexington Technology Group.

The amalgamation was anticipated to be the ultimate growth and shift in intra-industry competition in the first quarter of the year 2013 of which Bascom Research would have become the subsidiary of DSS (Christopher 9). DSS also gives solutions to various security issues to corporations, states and financial service providers. DSS’s main safety policies are formulated to safeguard against diversion of products, imitations, theft and other costly and detrimental incidences. The firm conducts analysis of risk and susceptibility evaluation, to Systems Corporation and assessment, where it also provides the technical tools and information required to safeguard the globe’s most expensive and vulnerable brands.

In the legal suit, it is said that the following patents were violated; * Way of Searching article Objects on a Network * structure for Managing Document Objects Stored on a Network * Method for Users of a Network to Provide Other Users with Access to Link Relationships between Documents (Christopher 17) According to Bascom Research CEO, the firm obtained a patent assortment of six copyrights and four imminent patent submissions connected to the invented technology. The technology was originally and single handedly created by Mr.

Bascom Fundamental Technology for application in the telecom and nationwide security departments. Mr. Bascom’s former firm, Link Space patented and commercialized the patented technology as a way of planning data and network and distributing knowledge in a network of computers. According to Mr. Bascom, the defendants are liable for infringement of the major patents which covers this technology, prompting the firm to seek justice on the breach, injunctive reprieve and relative damages. The innovations by Bascom Research entails the methods in which the users and developers of the application on the platforms of networking firms create connections between the “objects” like photos, individuals, occasions and pages, which is the main essence of the business of Facebook.

This type of lawsuit against Facebook may not be unique; Facebook and other networking and commercial firms are rapidly developing into serial violators of all kinds of privacy issues. The procedure used by Facebook for looking into such lawsuits is essentially to make the necessary settlements, modify the agreements on privacy and the software to a certain extent and then move on as if nothing went wrong. In this lawsuit however, the judge did not agree to the settlement. It is said that the settlement amounted to $ 20 million of which $ 10 million was to be channeled to different channels of charities inclusive of the privacy promoter groups and the rest to cover the legal fees (Christopher 13).

The most contentious part of the lawsuit is not the mass infringement of privacy and patent, but a repetitive phenomenon of the networking firms. As driven by competition for patents, the social networks and commercial advertisements online firms are continually being sued on occurrences regarding intellectual property violations. The companies violating the intellectual property rights have become a feasible model for business. For instance, Vringo shares went up by approximately 300 % in the year 2012 following the release of a documentary written and published by an investor and business pioneer.

The article highlighted the patent lawsuit which was brought up against Google by Vringo. In addition, Virnet is also another firm whose business model is to make use of the patent portfolio to obtain revenues for its business, majorly through lodging lawsuits against some selected major technology firms across the globe. The company’s stocks went up to 62% in 2012 and it may be up to 800% in the next 5 years due to the publicity arising from the various lawsuits (Christopher 23). Work cited Mims, Christopher.

“How Facebook leveraged publishers’ Desperation to build a web-wide Tracking systems,” Technology review (June 1, 2011)