Friendster has just been granted a patent for social networking, specifically:

“system, method, and apparatus for connecting users in an online computer system based on their relationships within social networks.”

They filed this patent in 2003, and it just got granted. Social networking is a general principle rather than one specific way of doing things, and therefore comes about through evolution rather than evolution. This theory is backed by the Wikipedia entry for social networking:

The first social networking website was Classmates.com, which began in 1995. Other sites followed, including SixDegrees.com, which began in 1997. It was not until 2001 that websites using the Circle of Friends online social networks started appearing. This form of social networking, widely used in virtual communities, became particularly popular in 2003 and flourished with the advent of a website called Friendster. There are over 200 social networking sites.

It is quite clear that Friendster didn’t ‘invent’ anything, it merely innovated, like all the services before it. Whilst I know next to nothing about US patent law, it would seem sensible if a worldwide legal principle were adopted that you cannot patent something if the end product is the result of longterm innovation from a number of different parties. Neither should you be able to patent individual innovations, as this would clearly also stifle development. It has become obvious that current patent practice in the US simply does not work, from an enforcement point of view and an innovation angle.