Social networking site is awarded patent for news feed activity stream, potentially giving it a monopoly on the technology behind an essential feature on dozens of sites across the social Web.

Social networking giant Facebook has won a patent for its news feed feature, locking in the intellectual property rights to one of its most popular features.

The patent describes "a method for displaying a news feed in a social network environment," detailing the flow and filtering of information about people's activities across the site. Read more.....