Facebook Sued Over Swipe-to-Reply Messaging Patents

Oct. 5, 2020, 3:53 PM UTC

A swipe-to-reply function in Facebook Inc., WhatsApp Inc., and Instagram LLC’s messaging services allegedly infringes patents owned by group-messaging platform Wrinkl Inc., according to a complaint filed in Delaware federal court.

Wrinkl owns U.S. Patent Nos. 9,860,198 and 10,728,192. The patents relate to Wrinkl’s “References” feature, which the complaint says “enables users to easily indicate which message(s), in a moving stream of many, their new message responds or refers to.”

The Friday complaint in the U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware says Facebook Messenger, Facebook Workplace Chat, WhatsApp Messenger, and the Instagram app—all owned by Facebook—infringe the ...

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