While several large dating sites are preparing for court battles, Spark Networks has sued Zoosk and OKCupid. Spark claims infringement in regards to them having “invented a method or apparatus for automating the process of confidentially determining whether people feel mutual attraction or have mutual interests.” To make matters more interesting, Spark itself is being sued, along with several other dating sites.
Spark actually has two patents. 5950200: “Method and apparatus for detection of reciprocal interests or feelings and subsequent notification” and 7,085,806: “Method and apparatus for recommending a match to another.” I’m no lawyer, someone go read them and give us the executive summary, please.
Here’s the general sense of the TechCrunch comments, along with my color commentary. Several are from actual dating site owners.
Brilliant move Spark, WFT is wrong with you people?
Patent trolls suck, thereby Spark Networks sucks.
Spark, unable to do much with the company through regular old subscriptions, is going to sue for some cash while they sunset their Titanic.
Given the 1999 assignment of the patents, Spark has been sitting on the opportunity to sue its competitors for a long time. Situations like this are generally executed in incredibly bad taste and judgement and almost never go anywhere and I don’t expect this to be any different.
Spark is sending a big FU to their competitors, which nobody is happy about. The problem with Spark (where to begin?) is that the company has been eating itself alive from the inside out for years. Even if this lawsuit brings them some money, they’re still going to be forever vilified in the industry. If I were Spark I wouldn’t bother coming to iDate again without a giant olive branch.
Yes I know “it’s only business” and perhaps they do have a case and OKCupid and Zoosk just built an algorithm from the Spark patent and maybe there is no prior art before 1999 that can be referenced that could invalidate the patent. However, this sort of patent protection drives everyone crazy. Wasted time, legal fees, etc. Its not entirely Spark Network’s fault either. The USPTO is severely broken and needs fixing. This is just another indicator of the bad shape our patent system is in.
Readers, what do you think?
