How Facebook's Share Button Works Across Different Websites
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.
Original patent title: “Sharing digital content on a social network”
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. Granted to Facebook Inc in 2017 with 30 claims and 4 forward citations.
Key facts
Coverage
What does this patent actually cover?
This patent explains the mechanism behind the 'Share' button found on third-party websites. When a user clicks a sharing control outside of a social network, the social network server receives a request and serves an interface back to the user. This interface allows the user to define 'sharing parameters,' such as which specific parts of a webpage to include, how the content should look, and which friends or channels (like a wall or private message) should receive it. The system then retrieves the content from the external site and distributes it within the social network based on those user-defined settings.
The gap
What does this patent NOT cover?
- Does not cover sharing content that is already hosted directly on the social network's own servers.
- Does not cover automated sharing that happens without an explicit interface for the user to select parameters.
- Does not cover the underlying technology of the web browser or the external website itself.
- Does not cover methods of sharing that do not involve a social networking system with established user connections.
These exclusions are unique to PatentBrief — derived from the actual claim language, not patent-office boilerplate.
What made this novel
The system dynamically tracks the original external content; if the source material on the external website is modified, the system can update the shared version within the social network to reflect those changes.
Schematic visualization of the patent's claim structure. Hand-drawn diagrams in progress for each landmark patent.
Where you've seen this
Real-world examples
Facebook Share buttons on news articles
Embedded social media widgets on blogs
Cross-platform content syndication tools
Why it matters
The bigger picture
This patent describes the plumbing for the 'social web' that emerged in the late 2000s. By standardizing how external content is pulled into a social feed, it enabled the viral spread of articles, images, and videos across platforms like Facebook, effectively turning the entire internet into an extension of the social network's ecosystem.
Filed
October 27, 2008
Granted
March 21, 2017
Market context
Who's building on this
Companies in this space
Meta (formerly Facebook) continues to refine these sharing mechanisms as a core part of their platform. Other major social platforms like X (formerly Twitter) and LinkedIn maintain similar proprietary systems for ingesting and formatting external web content.
Market impact
This technology helped solidify the dominance of social networks as the primary distribution layer for the internet. It triggered a shift where websites prioritized integration with social platforms to drive traffic, effectively making social sharing buttons a standard requirement for any digital content publisher.
Claim 1 — Plain English
What this patent covers
This patent explains the mechanism behind the 'Share' button found on third-party websites. When a user clicks a sharing control outside of a social network, the social network server receives a request and serves an interface back to the user. This interface allows the user to define 'sharing parameters,' such as which specific parts of a webpage to include, how the content should look, and which friends or channels (like a wall or private message) should receive it. The system then retrieves the content from the external site and distributes it within the social network based on those user-defined settings.
The clever bit
The system dynamically tracks the original external content; if the source material on the external website is modified, the system can update the shared version within the social network to reflect those changes.
What it does not cover
- Does not cover sharing content that is already hosted directly on the social network's own servers.
- Does not cover automated sharing that happens without an explicit interface for the user to select parameters.
- Does not cover the underlying technology of the web browser or the external website itself.
- Does not cover methods of sharing that do not involve a social networking system with established user connections.
Patent timeline
Application submitted to the patent office
Application published, typically 18 months after filing
Patent officially issued
PatentBrief Score
Impact Score
Strong
Citation count
14/40
Early citations
Claim breadth
20/20
Very broad protection
Recency
10/20
Granted 5–10 years ago
Assignee scale
20/20
Major company or institution
PatentBrief Impact Score — based on citation count, claim breadth, recency, and assignee scale. Not a legal assessment.
Heuristic Value Estimate
What this patent might be worth
$22K – $70K
Midpoint $44K · 2.4 yr remaining · industry ×1.4
Heuristic only — blends forward/backward citation counts, claim scope, time remaining, litigation history, and CPC-derived industry baseline. Real valuations need a professional appraisal.
The original legal language
Original claims
30 claims as filed with the patent office.
Concepts involved
Citations
Patent lineage
Cite this patent
Cuervo, O. S., Wang, J., & Wable, A. (2017). How Facebook's Share Button Works Across Different Websites (U.S. Patent No. 9,602,605). U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. https://patentbrief.org/patent/us/9602605/facebook-stories
Auto-generated from the patent record. Double-check author order and the issue date against the official USPTO document before submitting.
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Common Questions
Frequently Asked Questions
What does How Facebook's Share Button Works Across Different Websites cover?
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.
Who owns patent US 9602605?
Facebook Inc owns this patent, granted in 2017.
When does this patent expire?
This patent is expected to expire on March 21, 2037, when the invention enters the public domain.
What is patent US 9602605 cited by?
This patent has been cited by 4 later patents that build on its ideas.
What problem does this patent solve?
This patent describes the plumbing for the 'social web' that emerged in the late 2000s. By standardizing how external content is pulled into a social feed, it enabled the viral spread of articles, images, and videos across platforms like Facebook, effectively turning the entire internet into an extension of the social network's ecosystem.
What does this patent NOT cover?
Does not cover sharing content that is already hosted directly on the social network's own servers.
Same assignee
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