It is with anticipation that I receive the Ocean Tomo auction catalogs, looking for suprises. There are three lots of patents directed towards Social Networking. CIS speaker and Harvard law prof Jonathan Zittrain ( a great speaker) is the first named inventor of two patents (6,998,984 and 7,324,000) at the March auction. The patents are entitled, “State adaptation devices and methods for wireless communications”, but the catalog summarizes them as a “Non-verbal Wireless Communication System.” One of the claims of the ‘000 patent provides for
“A communications system comprising: a first bracelet for a user to wear that can sense a contraction when squeezed around the user, and including a transmitter for wirelessly transmitting a signal indicating that the bracelet has been squeezed; the first bracelet further including a receiver for receiving a signal and for contracting around the user in response to the received signal.”
Lot 41 (US 7,483,946 and 6,963,900) should interest LinkedIn, FaceBook, MySpace and similar social networking sites for patents covering facilitating meetings or events between two or more people. There are recent nascent efforts of potential licensing targets banding together to acquire select patents, thereby inoculating themselves from potential litigation. This would be an opportunity for LinkedIn et al. to acquire the patents and form a pool.