Posted February 13, 2013 by Faisal Hashmi in Web & Social

Facebook sued for patent infringement over the ‘like’ button

Though the 'like' button was only relegated to status updates on Facebook a few years ago, now Facebook has plastered that term all over their website and the word has pretty much gotten synonymous with the website. Well, if you've gotten used to it, there may be a hurdle in the way according to this lawsuit.

BBC reports that a company has sued Facebook for patent infringement over the 'like' button, claiming that it holds two patents for the technology thanks to a Dutch programmer who passed away. The programmer in question was Joannes Jozef Everardus van Der Meer, who created the patent to use for an old social diary called Surfboad back in 1998, a whole six years before Facebook was even born in 2004.

Rembrandt Social Media is the company holding the patent and this is what their lawyer says:

"We believe Rembrandt's patents represent an important foundation of social media as we know it, and we expect a judge and jury to reach the same conclusion based on the evidence."

If they win, a lot of money is going to be exchanging hands. Unless Facebook changes their Like to Love.