Surfbook was an early social networking service created by

Dutch Dutch commonly refers to: * Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands * Dutch people () * Dutch language () Dutch may also refer to: Places * Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States * Pennsylvania Dutch Country People E ...

programmer Joannes Jozef Everardus van der Meer in the years prior to his death in June 2004. Surfbook was based on technologies whose

patent A patent is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the legal right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention for a limited period of time in exchange for publishing an enabling disclosure of the invention."A ...

s were filed by Van der Meer in 1998 and granted in 2001 and 2002.Nederlandse ontwikkelaars klagen Facebook aan:
NRC Handelsblad It allowed users share their information with selected people and approve posts using a "Like" button, and to link to external information. On February 5, 2013, holders of the patents related to this site (Rembrandt Social Media, LP) filed a lawsuit against

Facebook Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin Mosk ...

for infringement. In June 2014, Facebook successfully defended itself against the lawsuit after a jury found that Facebook did not infringe the patents, and separately found the patents to be invalid. The plaintiff (Rembrandt Social Media, LP) appealed the verdict, but it was upheld by a federal appeals court in February 2016.

References

{{Online social networking Defunct social networking services Dutch social networking websites