Yahoo sues Facebook in US court for alleged infringing on 10 patents

Yahoo has filed an intellectual property lawsuit in a California court against Facebook, claiming that the social network infringed its 10 patents, including systems and methods for advertising on the web.

"Yahoo's patents relate to cutting edge innovations in online products, including in messaging, news feed generation, social commenting, advertising display, preventing click fraud and privacy controls," the BBC quoted the suit, as saying.

"Facebook's entire social network model, which allows users to create profiles and connect with, among other things, persons and businesses, is based on Yahoo's patented social networking technology,” it added.

Facebook described the legal action as “puzzling” and claimed Yahoo had not tried enough to settle the matter without involving the court.

"We're disappointed that Yahoo, a longtime business partner of Facebook and a company that has substantially benefited from its association with Facebook, has decided to resort to litigation," it added.

Yahoo had earlier sued Google ahead of its flotation in 2004.

The dispute centred over patents that Yahoo had acquired the previous year as part of its takeover of pay-per-position specialist Overture.

Google had later settled the case by issuing 2.7 million shares to Yahoo.

"It's reasonable that Yahoo would want to try this tactic again as it worked in the past. But there's an air of desperation about this - it's unlikely that they will get easy money from Facebook. This isn't going to derail the IPO," BGC Partner's technology analyst Colin Gillis said.