Twitter has just been awarded what is perhaps their most useful patent to date, a patent that covers the Twitter service itself.
Listing Twitter founders Jack Dorsey and Christopher Stone as the inventors, the patent describes a “system (and method) for device-independent point to multipoint communication”, covering pretty much everything that Twitter currently does.
The Verge reports that, while the claims for the Twitter patent are rather broad, Twitter has pledged to only use their patents defensively. The likes of Facebook and other services that send messages to large groups of people that could be termed ‘followers’ will still have to take a look at their processes in light of the newly awarded patent however.
Twitter said in a statement “Like many companies, we apply for patents on a bunch of our inventions. We also think a lot about how those patents may be used in the future, which is why we introduced the Innovator’s Patent Agreement to keep control of those patents in the hands of engineers and designers.”
Source: The Verge