IBM has sued Twitter for allegedly infringing three of its patents ahead of its much awaited initial public offering (IPO).
The micro-blogging site has been accused of infringing patents that cover ‘efficient retrieval of uniform resource locators’; ‘method for presenting advertising in an interactive service’; and ‘programmatic discovery of common contacts.’
Twitter said in its securities filings that from time to time the company receives claims from third parties which allege that it has infringed upon their intellectual property rights.
"Based upon our preliminary review of these patents, we believe we have meritorious defenses to IBM’s allegations, although there can be no assurance that we will be successful in defending against these allegations or reaching a business resolution that is satisfactory to us," the micro-blogging firm said.
"Many companies in these industries, including many of our competitors, have substantially larger patent and intellectual property portfolios than we do, which could make us a target for litigation as we may not be able to assert counterclaims against parties that sue us for patent, or other intellectual property infringement."
Reports revealed that patent claims against firms nearing an IPO are fairly common, as Yahoo also sued Facebook for patent infringement two months prior to its IPO.
