Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan is acting for Yahoo on its high-profile Facebook patent infringement lawsuit, reports The Am Law Litigation Daily.

Quinn Emanuel's 18-page complaint, which was filed on Monday (12 March) accuses Facebook of infringing 10 Yahoo patents through core features of its website, including its news feed, privacy controls, and pay-per-click advertisements.

"For much of the technology upon which Facebook is based, Yahoo! got there first and was therefore granted patents by the United States Patent Office to protect those innovations," Yahoo's lawyers wrote in the complaint, which was signed by Quinn Emanuel trial lawyer Charles Verhoeven.

Verhoeven has also recently represented Google and its Android partners on smartphone intellectual property disputes.

According to a Facebook spokesman, for its defence the company has turned to California-based law firm Cooley and fellow US firm Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr.

Cooley chairman Stephen Neal and litigation partners Michael Rhodes and Heidi Keefe are heading up their firm's team, with litigation partners William Lee and Cindy Vreeland leading for WilmerHale.

In a statement, Facebook said it was "disappointed that Yahoo, a longtime business partner of Facebook and a company that has substantially benefited from its association with Facebook, has decided to resort to litigation." Yahoo turned to the courts less than two weeks after the companies publicly acknowledged that they were at odds over the patents.

Yahoo is seeking an injunction and damages for alleged willful and deliberate infringement. The complaint does not estimate damages, but Yahoo claims that the alleged infringement cannot be compensated through royalties alone since Facebook used the patented technology to boost its revenue and market share.

"We have invested substantial resources into these innovations," Yahoo said in a statement last month. "Recognising that, other major web and technology companies have already licensed some of these technologies. We must insist that Facebook either enter into a licensing agreement or we will be compelled to move forward unilaterally to protect our rights."

Facebook is currently gearing up for its much-anticipated initial public offering, with US law firms Fenwick & West and Simpson Thacher & Bartlett taking the lead advisory roles.

Fenwick is representing Facebook while Simpson Thacher is advising the underwriting banks, which are led by Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Barclays Capital and JPMorgan Chase.

The Am Law Litigation Daily is a US affiliate title of Legal Week.