Now Facebook To Yahoo: You Stole From Me Too
3. A system of providing a user with selected, ranked, and posted topics of interest on their page based on his or her identified interests. Yahoo’s home page has a similar feature claims Facebook thus infringing the patent.
U.S. Patent No: 6,288,717
“Headline Posting Algorithm”
Filed: May 19, 1999
Granted: September 11, 2001
Abstract: The program uses the topic interest flags to determine which articles and other customizable elements of the database are shown on a particular member’s home page. The headline posting algorithm first checks the flags on every available item against the member’s interests, recorded in his or her user profile, then weighs the importance, rarity and significance of each match it has found, and finally displays the three highest-scoring items on the member’s home page in descending order of value.
