How to make a simple Facebook canvas app?

I want to make an app like Facebook or foursquare, what are some of the legal and privacy issues I have to deal with?

• I've recently heard Facebook made an app called slingshot that might conflict with snapchat's patent. If i were to make an app that has to do with social media how would I know if I am violating someone else's patent? Would I need to look up each and every company's patent? Where do I go to do this? Also, are there any other concerns I need to deal with regarding the legal and privacy issues?

• Answer:

  This is not an easy question.  The amount of effort you want to put into your patent searches and licensing up front really depends on how successful you think your product will be in the market.  A grass roots build usually cannot afford a complete patent search and licensing program.  I provide some advice here that will help you decide on the effort. My recommendation is to put all of your creative efforts into your app now, then test it with crowdfunding or some other mechanism.  You can keep your IP plans on the back burner until it looks like you will be successful.  After you have success and cash flow then one of your business priorities should be to secure your IP positions through licensing and patenting, but not before you build it and market it.  Others will disagree with this advice but I have seen many entrepreneurs spending their seed or startup capital hopelessly mired in patent and IP discussions that were completely unproductive.  If they had spent these resources on building their product they could have secured their IP position later when they really knew what features were important.  Any infringing features can usually be worked around, which can be done in future product revisions. If you develop something really unique then do a quick patent search to see if you are infringing just on that unique part of your app or code.  That will lead you to patents that you can either license or work around with your code.  If you just gotta have it and somebody else has it patented then you'll need to acquire it from them.  If it looks like you really have something unique then you can either keep it secret or file a provisional patent app just as a place holder for a patent filing next year when your app is successful. If you do not want to take the risk of just building it and worrying about IP later, then there are a lot of things you can do yourself to lower the cost, but be warned that this is a significant effort.  Stay away from the lawyers until you get into your licensing negotiations, and then engage them only to recommend or review terms and conditions of contracts and agreements.  You know your tech best and you cannot depend on lawyers to give you qualified tech advice.  If you do, it is the most expensive tech advice you will ever get!  To comment on privacy and legal issues you should just google the topics you think might cause problems.  There are numerous sites dealing with responsibilities of forum software developers, admins, and users.  Whether you have liability really depends on your topics.  If your software allows the admin to block illegal or offensive content you're probably OK and there are plenty of ways to do that.  If you are pushing the envelope with your content then look for advice from someone else on that.  A complete social networking app like Facebook or Twitter will have literally thousands of patents, most of which they bought from other companies.  Facebook, for example, had 3 infringement claims from IBM which led to them purchasing over 2000 patents from them.  I would note that Zuckerberg did the same thing I am advising and did not secure all of his IP before he launched that app.  For a good discussion of IP licensing for social networking apps go here:  http://www.ipwatchdog.com/2014/02/14/facebook-and-twitter-patent-strategies-for-social-media/id=48004/ When you do go out to secure your IP, my advice is to do your own patent research on the specific topic that makes your software unique.  I use the government http://www.uspto.gov site, but there are many others.  If you find it is already patented, which is likely, then it is usually easiest to simply work out a licensing deal with whoever owns that patent.  With licensing you basically acquire the strength of that company to defend their patent.  You also might get some useful information for your development from the company's confidential files they will give you along with the license.  You can use open source software and tools like wordpress for development, but even then you are not sure about the author and whether their software has stood the test of a successful market launch. Your patent search will very likely lead you to the companies who will be your competitors or it will lead you to IBM, the thousand pound gorilla on the block or Apple, the thousand pound whale, or you might encounter Yahoo or Google.  IBM is the primary source of most IP in the Facebook and Twitter patent portfolios.  Facebook has developed some on their own and Twitter mostly just bought a bunch of patents from IBM.  All of these companies have licensing arrangements with other companies so the IP can likely be obtained that way in the future if necessary. My overall advice is to build the app and protect your code in house so that it cannot be stolen easily.  Do not worry about IP protection and infringement until after you have some success in the market and cash flow. Plan to deal with this, but do it later. I am not a lawyer and this advice is my opinion only, so use at your own risk.