It's Complicated: Facebook Fights Relationship Status Lawsuit

Never heard of Mekiki Co.? It's a Japanese company that says that Facebook has been infringing on three of its social networking patents, including its "human relationships registering system." 

Facebook is fighting the company on the court case, and filed a challenge Feb. 7, according to AllFacebook. The patents themselves are fairly mysterious, but do have a similar synopsis:

Human relationships registering system, method and device for registering human relationships, program for registering human relationships, and medium storing human relationships registering program and readable by computer  . . . all of which are used to establish wide and close relationships with members having a variety of occupations or engaged in various technical fields and to obtain expert knowledge or information.

Apparently the Tokyo-based Mekiki closed on at least one of the patents in 2005 and the latest in 2009. Mekiki runs the Samuraitime.com website, a spiritual social network.

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