IBM has filed lawsuit against Twitter over three software patents that relate to various services offered through the microblogging site.
The patents under dispute include US Patent No. 6,957,224, Efficient retrieval of uniform resource locators; US Patent No. 7,072,849, Method for presenting advertising in an interactive service; and US Patent No. 7,099,862, Programmatic discovery of common contacts.
The lawsuit happens as Twitter gets ready for the IPO. Just yesterday Twitter announced it has raised the top end range of its IPO range by 25 percent and will close its books a day early, showing huge demand for its shares.
This is not the only case pending at Twitter. The microblogging site is facing several patent cases, so officials are considering a smart move to settle the issues.
“Some of our competitors have substantially greater resources than we do and are able to sustain the costs of complex intellectual property litigation to a greater degree and for longer periods of time than we could,” Twitter officials said.
Twitter may decide to settle the lawsuit and disputes on terms that are unfavorable to them. Twitter’s response to IBM was that it might be able to challenge IBM’s assertions, but then again, maybe not.
“Based upon our preliminary review of these patents, we believe we have meritorious defenses to IBM’s allegations, although there can be no assurance that we will be successful in defending against these allegations or reaching a business resolution that is satisfactory to us,” an official statement from Twitter said.
