Fish & Richardson a global law firm has filed a Patent Infringement Lawsuit on behalf of a dead Dutch programmer called Joannes Jozef Everardus van Der Meer.

According to legal papers filed by Fish and Richardson, ‘Surfbook’ was a social diary that let its users share information with friends and family and the mechanism used to approve information was a “like” button.

Rembrandt Social Media who now own the patents for the technologies used to build the Social Media Platform ‘Surfbook’ where granted to Mr Van Der Meer almost 10 years ago, well before Social Media Giant Facebook came crashing onto the scene.

Rembrandt’s comment is simply that the patents were used without permission and possibly contributed to the massive success of Facebook.

Facebook declined to comment on either the claim or the Lawsuit.

It is documented in the legal paperwork filed by Fish & Richardson that Facebook knew of the patent (and therefor potentially the infringement) as Facebook themselves makes reference to it in its own social networking technology patent applications.

“We believe Rembrandt’s patents represent an important foundation of social media as we know it, and we expect a judge and jury to reach the same conclusion based on the evidence,” says attorney Tom Melsheimer, counsel for Rembrandt and managing principal of Fish & Richardson’s Dallas office.