Surfbook
Surfbook was an early social networking service created by Dutch programmer Joannes Jozef Everardus van der Meer in the years prior to his death in June 2004. Surfbook was based on technologies whose patents were filed by Van der Meer in 1998 and granted in 2001 and 2002. It allowed users share their information with selected people and approve posts using a "Like" button, and to link to external information. On February 5, 2013, holders of the patents related to this site filed a lawsuit against Facebook for infringement.
In June 2014, Facebook successfully defended itself against a lawsuit that alleged the social media company infringed on van der Meer's patents, after a jury found that Facebook did not infringe the patents because the patents were invalid. The plaintiff appealed the verdict, but it was upheld by a federal appeals court in February 2016.
