There have been numerous patent wars fought on the telecommunications field of late (most notably between Apple and Samsung), and now this form of legal conflict has spilled over to the social networking and web arena. Internet search company Yahoo! has filed a patent lawsuit on Monday against the social networking behemoth Facebook (FB).

According to All Things Digital (ATD), the lawsuit was filed in a US federal court in San Jose, California. It involves ten patents that deal with advertising, privacy, customisation features such as the creation of personalised data streams, messaging as well as social networking.

FB’s "entire social network model, which allows users to create profiles for and connect with, among other things, persons and businesses, is based on Yahoo!’s patented social networking technology,” Yahoo!’s stated in its filing.

According to the web search firm, this patented social networking technology includes FB’s News Feed, the methods it utilises for its advertising as well as the placement there off on its site, and its privacy settings for users.

Yahoo! said that it has licenced some of these patents to other companies, but in the case of FB the issue “remains unresolved”. It has asked the court to order FB to pay an undisclosed amount for damages, as well as all the costs associated with this lawsuit.

 

In related news, Yahoo! also revealed at the beginning of this year that its co-founder Jerry Yang has resigned from its Board of Directors and all other positions he holds within the company. In addition, Yang has also resigned from the Boards of Yahoo! Japan as well as Alibaba Group Holding.