{
  "patent_number": "US 7669123",
  "country": "US",
  "title": "Displaying Friends' Activities in a Social Network Feed",
  "original_title": "Dynamically providing a news feed about a user of a social network",
  "summary": "This patent describes how social networks like Facebook collect what users do, create short updates about those actions, and show them to specific friends in a personalized list called a \"news feed.\"",
  "what_it_does": "The patent describes a system that monitors various user activities within a social network, such as posting a photo or updating a status (Claim 1). These activities are stored in a database and then used to generate \"news items\" (Claim 1). For instance, if a friend shares a link, a news item is created about that action. These news items are then displayed in a \"news feed\" to a specific group of viewing users, with access limited by privacy settings (Claim 1). Crucially, each news item can include a link that allows the viewing user to \"participate in the same activity\" as the original user, such as clicking to comment on a shared post (Claim 1). The system can also arrange these items, for example, chronologically (Claim 6), and dynamically adjust the number of items shown (Claim 12).",
  "what_it_does_not_cover": [
    "Does not cover displaying news items without an associated link that allows a viewing user to participate in the same activity (Claim 1).",
    "Does not cover news feeds that are not limited to a \"predetermined set of viewers\" (Claim 1).",
    "Does not cover systems where news items are not generated from activities performed by *another user* (Claim 1).",
    "Does not cover news feeds that only show a single news item, as it specifies \"two or more\" (Claim 1).",
    "Does not cover news feeds that don't monitor and store user activities in a database (Claim 1)."
  ],
  "filed": "2006-08-11",
  "granted": "2010-02-23",
  "expires": "2026-08-11",
  "status": "active",
  "holder": "Facebook Inc",
  "holder_url": "https://patentbrief.org/company/facebook-inc",
  "inventors": [
    {
      "name": "Dan Corson",
      "url": "https://patentbrief.org/inventor/dan-corson"
    },
    {
      "name": "Andrew Bosworth",
      "url": "https://patentbrief.org/inventor/andrew-bosworth"
    },
    {
      "name": "Mark Zuckerberg",
      "url": "https://patentbrief.org/inventor/mark-zuckerberg"
    },
    {
      "name": "Aaron Sittig",
      "url": "https://patentbrief.org/inventor/aaron-sittig"
    },
    {
      "name": "Ruchi Sanghvi",
      "url": "https://patentbrief.org/inventor/ruchi-sanghvi"
    },
    {
      "name": "Katie Geminder",
      "url": "https://patentbrief.org/inventor/katie-geminder"
    },
    {
      "name": "Chris Cox",
      "url": "https://patentbrief.org/inventor/chris-cox"
    },
    {
      "name": "Chris Hughes",
      "url": "https://patentbrief.org/inventor/chris-hughes"
    }
  ],
  "times_cited": 231,
  "tags": [
    "social_network",
    "software",
    "telecommunications"
  ],
  "abstract": "A method for displaying a news feed in a social network environment is described. The method includes generating news items regarding activities associated with a user of a social network environment and attaching an informational link associated with at least one of the activities, to at least one of the news items, as well as limiting access to the news items to a predetermined set of viewers and assigning an order to the news items. The method further may further include displaying the news items in the assigned order to at least one viewing user of the predetermined set of viewers and dynamically limiting the number of news items displayed.",
  "url": "https://patentbrief.org/patent/us/7669123/facebook-news-feed-social-network",
  "markdown_url": "https://patentbrief.org/patent/us/7669123/facebook-news-feed-social-network/md",
  "google_patents_url": "https://patents.google.com/patent/US7669123",
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}