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Google has been awarded a patent that describes a software method for selectively restricting the availability of content on the basis of access privileges and geographical location. On the surface, it may look like this patent covers techniques for censoring politically sensitive content in specific countries-a practice that Google has recently spoken out against in its ongoing feud with China. A closer look at the patent's claims, however, shows that it has little to do with censorship and may actually relate to the company's controversial book scanning initiative.

Facebook has a patent on "news-feed" style social networking. Uh oh.

"Facebook's news feed from its 400 million users has helped the social network far surpass its competitors, which also supply similar digital streams of consciousness. But now, Facebook owns the patent on news feeds."

"A patent application by Google (GOOG), filed in August 2008 and only made public last week, shows that the company is working on an automated way to split printed magazines and newspapers into individual articles that it could then deliver separately. Although this could allow Google to convert stacks of periodicals into electronic archives, it potentially sends the company headlong into conflict with a famous Supreme Court ruling on media law."

Television set-top box maker TiVo Inc. won an federal appeals court ruling expected to force Dish Network and EchoStar corporations to pay at least $300 million in damages for a patent violation.