Facebook Awarded Another Patent, Continues Dominating The Social Web

In continuing to do really well for itself, Facebook won another patent, this one for “Generating a feed of stories personalized for members of a social network”, similar to one they won earlier this year.

Mashable had this to say:

The newly awarded patent, however, seems to be concerned more with displaying data that stems from a relationship between two users. This excerpt from the abstract of the newly awarded patent — “At least one action of one or more members of a web-based social network is associated with relationship data for the one or more members to produce consolidated data” — reminds us of a recently introduced Facebook feature which allows you to see all the interaction between you and another Facebook user.

So far, Facebook has been using its patents defensively, and hasn’t sued other companies that have features similar to Facebook’s News Feed. However, merely controlling these patents gives Facebook even more power over its competitors in the social networking realm.

And that it does. Facebook has been awarded multiple patents and by continuing to carve their way through, will continue to make aspects of itself, more and more proprietary.

Is this good news or bad news? Do you find it possibly damaging to social networks with similar features?