Meta Platforms, Inc. (formerly Facebook, Inc.) is a publicly traded technology company headquartered in Menlo Park, California. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg and fellow Harvard students, the company officially rebranded in October 2021 to reflect its strategic focus on building the "metaverse." Trading on the Nasdaq under the ticker META, the company reported annual revenue of over $200 billion for 2025 and employed approximately 78,865 people as of December 31, 2025.
Meta is an operating company whose primary business is building applications and technologies that enable people to connect through social media, messaging, and immersive experiences. Its core products include the social networks Facebook and Instagram, the messaging services WhatsApp and Messenger, and the text-based app Threads. Revenue is generated predominantly from selling advertising space across this "Family of Apps." The company is also making significant investments in augmented and virtual reality through its Reality Labs division, which develops products like the Meta Quest line of VR headsets, with the long-term goal of creating a metaverse.
Based on the provided data, the company is an operating company that defends against patent litigation. The case list shows it as a defendant in one tracked case and a plaintiff in none. This defensive posture is typical for a large technology company that develops its own products and services. The single case listed, filed in the U.S. District Court of Delaware, positions Meta as a target of patent assertion rather than an aggressor.
The tracked case, Sampo IP, LLC v. Facebook, Inc. et al., was filed on February 10, 2014. The plaintiff, Sampo IP, LLC, is a subsidiary of Marathon Patent Group, a company that acquires and licenses patent portfolios. On the same day, Sampo IP also filed similar infringement lawsuits against other major technology companies, including Amazon, Intuit, LinkedIn, and eBay, asserting patents related to a "Centrifugal Communication and Collaboration Method." This pattern indicates that the suit against Facebook was part of a broader licensing campaign by a non-practicing entity (NPE).