IBM Tries To Put Twitter In Patent Cage

This may have been the day that IBM actually started to look desperate.

In an update to its S-1 filing prior to its initial public offering some time this week, Twitter somewhat casually revealed that IBM has notified the social media company that it is infringing on three of IBM's patents.

The nugget of information was buried deep in the S-1 form's Risk Factors section, one of the required tools to give investors a realistic look at the potential value of Twitter as a company.

From time to time we receive claims from third parties which allege that we have infringed upon their intellectual property rights. In this regard, we recently received a letter from International Business Machines Corporation, or IBM, alleging that we infringe on at least three U.S. patents held by IBM, and inviting us to negotiate a business resolution of the allegations. The three patents specifically identified by IBM in the letter were U.S. Patent No. 6,957,224: Efficient retrieval of uniform resource locators, U.S. Patent No. 7,072,849: Method for presenting advertising in an interactive service and U.S. Patent No. 7,099,862: Programmatic discovery of common contacts.