Facebook on a monopolistic path?

It was not too long ago when we lived with the fact that the Internet and social media were free and open-ended connectivity tool. But not anymore. Under the veil of this simple and innocuous medium, a war is being raged - a war for dominance and greater control of the cyberspace. As all wars, the first line of assault is generally territorial followed by political, economic and cultural. The real and the virtual world may look incidental and divergent but a closer look reveals how the war of dominance is getting real in the virtual world.

A case in point is Facebook, which recently bought some valuable patents from Microsoft in its attempt to have greater control over new applications. Microsoft had in turn bought these patents from AOL for a staggering sum of $ 1 Billion. It is believed that the new acquisition which Facebook bought for $550 million will give it access to some 925 AOL applications. The new intellectual property portfolio is expected to boost Facebook's positioning and it might incorporate it as new features in the existing or in allied properties.

Now it was just a couple of weeks back Facebook had acquired Instagram, a mobile photo sharing platform, for $ 1 Billion. It had also acquired some 750 patents from IBM Corp for access to software and networking. Why is Facebook on an acquisition and buying spree at this point of time? It seems, there are reasons more than one.

The leading social media house, whose growth has astounded critic, can't be expected to be doing something stupid when everyone is reeling under slow recovery from the economic meltdown. Led by one of the brightest tech entrepreneurs, Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook is playing its card well.

As part of a calculated move before it goes public in June, Facebook wants to gather as many patents as possible under its kitty. The social media giant has said it expects to raise $5 billion in its initial public offering. But experts are of the opinion that it might even exceed $100 billion provided Facebook keeps its table clean and has more patents under its wings. Before it got into an acquisition spree, it had a meager 56 US patents, which by all account is a unimpressive number when companies like AOL had as many as 925 patent applications.

There is yet another reason why Facebook has become touchier about the patent issues. It's already fighting litigation against Yahoo for patent violation in 10 measures and has filed a counter litigation against them for equal number of violations. The litigation doesn't seems to be heading towards a compromise and may continue  for some time before both the parties reach an amicable solution like the Apple and Samsung reconciled and resolved the smart-phone, tablet patent dispute issue.

With every new technology comes a new challenge as more and more players jump into the bandwagon to claim their pound of flesh. Internet and social media are no exception. A similar situation arose when Industrial Revolution began and with other new technologies related to aviation, automobile, food processing made their foray into the market place. For Internet and mobile connectivity, it's the new software, new apps which are ruling the roost and are likely to dominate the virtual sphere for greater control and dominance.

As new innovations get patented, smart entrepreneurs often try to either buy it or acquire it and find an application to use them more innovatively and make profit. Last year, Google bought Motorola Mobility for $12.5 billion to 'supercharge' and 'protect' its popular Android mobile operating system. Apple, on the other hand, launched a massive assault against Android, which it claims was a stolen property based on its iOS. Steve Jobs had virtually launched a 'thermonuclear war' against Android and was adamant in protecting his intellectual property.

There was yet another case of patent violation when Oracle Corp. accused Google for using its Java technology, a programming platform of Oracle, for building its widely used Android software. The litigation is still continuing and last week Google CEO Larry Page was summoned in a San Francisco courtroom for testifying in the case.
 
Now, such litigations have become common place as the war of dominance continues in the cyber world. The outcome of the war, however depends on new innovations and new patents and the conglomerates controlling it. Facebook is on an aggressive warpath on patent issues. No doubt the future belongs to them lest they prove themselves outdated. It's an unpleasant truth of new media that they lose relevance with the fall of hats - Yahoo, Second Life, Orkut and many more. Hopefully, Zuckerberg will prove it wrong.