Yahoo's suit follows recent ... Yahoo Inc sued Facebook Inc on Monday over 10 patents that include methods and systems for advertising on the... 
 
 SAN FRANCISCO Yahoo Inc sued Facebook Inc over 10 patents that include methods and systems for advertising on the Web, opening the first major legal battle among big technology companies in social media. The move by Yahoo's new chief executive, Scott Thompson, came as Facebook moves toward an initial public offering of stock this year that could value the company at $100 billion. Yahoo said late last month it was seeking licensing fees from Facebook over its patents and that other companies have already agreed to such licensing deals. "Mr. Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook's founder and CEO, has conceded that the design of Facebook is not novel and is based on the ideas of others," the lawsuit said. The faded Internet behemoth on Monday filed a suit against Facebook, alleging that the social-networking service got a "free ride" by violating 10 Yahoo patents covering technologies such as online advertising, privacy controls and messaging. The complaint, filed in the U.S. District Court in San Jose, Calif., makes a case that Yahoo innovated on several fronts, including messaging, news feed generation, social commenting advertising display, preventing click fraud and privacy controls. Several social networking companies, including Facebook, have seen an uptick in patent claims asserted against them as they move through the IPO process.
– Yahoo followed through on its threat to sue Facebook today, filing a suit accusing the social networking company of violating 10 Yahoo patents. The suit, filed by new CEO Scott Thompson, reportedly comes after months of talks between the two companies; it alleges that Facebook got a "free ride" by using patented technology covering everything from messaging to online ads. Yahoo is struggling and Facebook is about to go public; suits like this are common in such cases, an expert tells the Wall Street Journal. Another tells Reuters that the timing might make Facebook "more willing to resolve" the differences. The suit alleges that Facebook succeeded by using principles "Yahoo had its pulse on" years earlier, a former Yahoo exec says; one example is Facebook's newsfeed, which is similar to Yahoo's patent for custom data streams. "With this lawsuit Yahoo is saying they had the ideas first," the exec says. Indeed, the lawsuit quotes Mark Zuckerberg himself, Mashable reports; he once said, "Getting there first is not what it's all about." A Facebook spokesperson says the company first learned of the suit through the media.