A solid story on how Hoffman and Pincus picked up the sixdegrees.com patent. How this patent will play out is, of course, anyone's guess. So far the patent hasn't seemed to stop anyone from jumping into the space.
Patent 6,175,831 was barely on the market before Reid Hoffman jumped on it.
He responded within 24 hours. And his small start-up, LinkedIn, beat out 20 other bidders — including online giant Yahoo — to one of the hottest patents in one of the hottest new industries: online social networking.
The patent fight reflects the sharp rise of interest in social networking — a technology that leverages social circles to improve business and dating. It also comes at a time when regulators are taking a harder line on intellectual property cases and raises questions about how far the patent can shape the future of the young industry.
