The popular Social Networking site Twitter is being sued by TechRadium, a Texas-based firm that developed a mass notification and emergency response service that delivers messages to multiple contacts simultaneously. TechRadium has filed a lawsuit in a US district court against Twitter for infringing three of its patents, alleging that the patent it holds for its IRIS (Immediate Response Information System) emergency notification system is being infringed upon by Twitter.
The IRIS system seems to be capable of notifying large numbers of people simultaneously, via different media in a way similar to microblogging sites. Micro blogging is a form of multimedia blogging that allows users to send brief text updates or micromedia such as photos or audio clips and publish them, either to be viewed by anyone or by a restricted group which can be chosen by the user. These messages can be submitted by a variety of means, including text messaging, instant messaging, email, digital audio or the web. Twitter are not the only site capable of doing this, so perhaps the defence lawyers will be able to cite common practice or public domain.
The lawsuit, filed on Tuesday in the US District Court for the Southern District of Texas, Houston Division, seeks among other things unspecified damages, recovery of attorneys’ fees and a permanent injunction against Twitter. Is it me, or does it seem that when ever something really obvious gets to be successful, and have mass market appeal, then the lawyers start lining up for a piece of the action. I confidently predict that someone who has patented a content management system will be filing against WordPress shortly.