# Displaying Friends' Activities in a Social Network Feed > 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." - **Patent:** US 7669123 - **Original title:** Dynamically providing a news feed about a user of a social network - **Owner:** Facebook Inc - **Granted:** 2010 - **Status:** Public domain (expired) - **Times cited:** 231 - **Field:** social_network, software, telecommunications ## 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). ## The clever bit The novelty lies in combining the monitoring of diverse user activities, generating news items from them, and then dynamically displaying these items in a personalized, access-controlled feed that includes interactive links. The ability to link directly to the *same activity* for participation was a key innovation. ## Real-world examples 1. Facebook News Feed 2. Instagram Feed 3. Twitter (now X) timeline 4. LinkedIn Feed 5. TikTok "For You" page ## Why it matters This patent covers the foundational functionality of the Facebook News Feed, a feature that profoundly changed how people interact on social media. Launched in 2006, the News Feed became central to Facebook's user engagement and growth, allowing users to passively consume updates from their network. Its success led to widespread adoption of similar feed-based interfaces across the internet and remains a core component of modern social platforms. ## Frequently asked questions ### What does Displaying Friends' Activities in a Social Network Feed cover? 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." ### Who owns patent US 7669123? Facebook Inc owns this patent, granted in 2010. ### When does this patent expire? This patent has expired and is now in the public domain — anyone can use the invention freely. ### What is patent US 7669123 cited by? This patent has been cited by 231 later patents that build on its ideas. ### What problem does this patent solve? This patent covers the foundational functionality of the Facebook News Feed, a feature that profoundly changed how people interact on social media. Launched in 2006, the News Feed became central to Facebook's user engagement and growth, allowing users to passively consume updates from their network. Its success led to widespread adoption of similar feed-based interfaces across the internet and remains a core component of modern social platforms. ### What does this patent 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). **Full plain-English explainer:** https://patentbrief.org/patent/us/7669123/facebook-news-feed-social-network **Original patent:** https://patents.google.com/patent/US7669123 --- _Source: PatentBrief — https://patentbrief.org. Patent facts are from public records; the plain-English explanation is PatentBrief's._ ## Related patents Semantically similar inventions in the PatentBrief corpus: - [How Facebook's News Feed Picks Stories You'll Like](https://patentbrief.org/patent/us/8171128/facebook-social-graph) — Facebook's 2012 patent explains how it creates a personalized news feed by showing stories about friends' actions, ordered by your interest, and updating it based on what you click. - [How Facebook Ranks Search Results Based on Your Friends' Activity](https://patentbrief.org/patent/us/8914392/facebook-events) — A method for ranking search results by prioritizing links that your social network friends have clicked on previously. - [How a System Ranks Content Based on Friend Recommendations](https://patentbrief.org/patent/us/20230245158/content-recommendation-system) — This patent describes a system that recommends content, like TV shows, by tracking how many friends accept social media recommendations and then ranking content based on how fast those acceptances are growing. - [How Google's Patent Scores Authors and Posts on Messaging Systems](https://patentbrief.org/patent/us/8606792/facebook-timeline) — Google's 2013 patent describes a system for ranking authors and their posts on a messaging platform based on user interactions and subscriptions, influencing content visibility. - [How Facebook's Share Button Works Across Different Websites](https://patentbrief.org/patent/us/9602605/facebook-stories) — A patent describing how a social network can pull content from an outside website and share it with friends based on specific user-selected settings.