Twitter Gets Sued For Creating “Virtual Community of Famous People”

By Samantha Rollins | January 20, 2011 | +

Look out, Twitter, it looks like the folks at VS Technologies are after you.

The small company alleges that the micro-blogging site is infringing on patent 6,408,309, which discloses “a method and system for creating an interactive virtual community of famous people.”

Hold on–Twitter is a virtual community of famous people? Now, if only @DarthVader would just retweet me.

Despite the fact that absolutely nothing has been done with this patent to create an idyllic celebrities-only online community since its creation in 2002, VS Technologies is demanding some recognition. The documents say that the company wants “a reasonable royalty for the use of the patented technology, together with interest and costs as fixed by this Court.”

Wishful thinking, if you ask us.

More on Techland:

Twitter Trash Talk Takes Courtney Love to Court

Can You Tell When a Celeb’s Tweet is #Endorsed?

Twitter Does Not Mean Copyright Free, Court Rules

Related Topics: celebrities, lawsuit, patents, Social Networking, sued, Business, News, Social Networking, Twitter

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http://crichton007.wordpress.com crichton007

I never thought this was how I’d find out that I’m famous but it’s still welcome news. If you want any further comment beyond that then call my agent.
pks29733steel

What a ‘twit’.
lmg9

I would bet money that VS Technologies is one of those “companies” made up of lawyers that patent anything and everything they can think of and sit back and wait until one of those said “patents” becomes widely used and then sues for their big pay day.
dstorfer

We definitely need some new legislation on patent law — if you file a patent and make no obvious efforts to bring the project to fruition, then you lose the rights to that patent.
Paul Allen just sued almost every major .COM site over some “news video display” patent. The patent was filed in 1995, and no work was ever done. Case closed – you snooze, you lose!
I don’t even think someone could use the excuse that they didn’t have the resources to do the project. As far as I know, a patent costs at least $10k to even get filed with all the lawyer fees, so it’s not likely that someone with no resources is out filing patents. If they had enough time, energy, and connections to raise $10k to get the patent, then they have enough of the same to find investors for the project.
http://nevada-trust.com nevada trust

fame is overrated and burns out most people who are famous.