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In a recent Law.com article (link HERE), Facebook, Inc. was identified as again being a potential active defendant in an infringement lawsuit initiated by Cross Atlantic Capital Partners (XACP), who claims to own the rights to a patent for an Internet-based "community for users with common interests to interact in" invented a decade ago. In 2007, XACP filed suit against Facebook regarding U.S. Patent No. 6,519,629 (entitled "System for creating a community of users with common interests to interact in," available HERE), which lead to an inter partes reexamination of the patent. According to the Law.com article, "the [U.S. Patent and Trademark Office] examiners issued a decision that reaffirmed the validity of XACP's patent. And in late March 2010, the examiners issued a right of appeal notice, effectively finalizing their decision and clearing the way for Facebook to challenge the decision before the Patent Office Board of Patent Appeals" The patent at issue was filed in February 2000, issued three years later on February 11, 2003, and contains 32 system and method claims. As invalidity defenses are now off the table (according to the article referenced above), counsel for XACP is considering a request to lift the stay and allow the case to proceed to trial, presumably should no settlement be reached between the parties before then. The docket for the 2007 case, including over 175 docket entries, is available HERE via Justia.com.

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