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Is It Lawful to Use Twitter for Emergency Messages?

By Carolyn Elefant

We already know what the law has to say about shouting "fire" in a crowded theater. But can you shout "fire" on a crowded Twitter? TechRadium, a Texas-based emergency alert provider, says no. As The National Law Journal reports, TechRadium is suing Twitter for alleged patent infringement for allowing municipalities, companies and government agencies to use its site as an emergency notification system. TechRadium claims that Twitter's "core functionality" falls within the range of technology covered by TechRadium's patents. When organizations tweet about road closures, fires or bad weather, the company claims its patent rights are being violated. And that's happening more frequently, as municipalities and large corporations are using Twitter to alert the public about fires, hurricanes, road closures and other emergencies. One of the patent lawyers quoted in the story picked up on an inconsistency in the lawsuit that had me puzzled. E. Leonard Rubin, an intellectual property attorney at Chicago's Querrey & Harrow, asked: "Why is the use of Twitter's function in a normal way not infringing on TechRadium's patents, but it is called infringing when it's used as an emergency notification system?" "The TechRadium patents are not labeled as for "emergency notification systems," Rubin said. "An...

Full post as published by Legal Blog Watch on August 11, 2009 (boomark / email).