This Facebook patent by inventor Mark Zuckerberg is directed towards managing information about relationships in a social network via a social timeline. Mr. Zuckerberg was awarded U.S. Patent 7725492 entitled “Managing information about relationships in a social network via a social timeline” on May 25, 2010. The utility patent has been cited 188 times by other U.S. patents in the field of computer technology and in other fields.
A system, method, and computer program for generating a social timeline is provided. A plurality of data items associated with at least one relationship between users associated with a social network is received, each data item having an associated time. The data items are ordered according to the at least one relationship. A social timeline is generated according to the ordered data items. Link: U.S. Patent 7725492
Facebook filed this utility patent on December 26, 2006 giving it a processing time of 1246 days (compared to an average processing time of 1879 in the field). They have a total number of 2008 patents. The first named inventor is Mark E. Zuckerberg of Palo Alto, CA. The patent was allowed by primary examiner Don Wong and assistant examiner Sheree N Brown.
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