Andy Baio, a former Yahoo employee, is siding with Facebook in the Yahoo-Facebook patent dispute.

In an article on Wired, Baio relays his story of how his patents, which he thought would be used to defend Yahoo, are now being used as a missile against Facebook.  In 2005, Yahoo acquired Upcoming.org, the collaborative events calendar Baio launched two years prior, followed by the acquisition of Del.icio.us and Webjay.  They were asked by Yahoo to “file patents for anything and everything we’d invented while working on Upcoming.org.”

Baio claims that “Yahoo assured us that their patent portfolio was a precautionary measure, to defend against patent trolls and others who might try to attack Yahoo with their own holdings. It was a cold war, stockpiling patents instead of nuclear arms, and every company in the valley had a bunker full of them.”

Little did he know that the patents he filed, four of which were granted by the U.S. Patent and Trade Office, will be used as an offensive weapon instead of the defensive purpose they were led to believe.

“Yahoo’s lawsuit against Facebook is an insult to the talented engineers who filed patents with the understanding they wouldn’t be used for evil,” Baio stated.  “Betraying that trust won’t be forgotten, but I doubt it matters anymore. Nobody I know wants to work for a company like that.”

The ex-Yahoo employee also stated that Yahoo’s patent case stems from their numerous failed attempts in creating a viable social network.  Baio notes that Yahoo’s claims that much of Facebook’s  technology is based on theirs is just sad, and even quoted Facebook founder Jesse Eisenberg cum Mark Zuckerberg in The Social Network:  “If you guys were the inventors of Facebook, you’d have invented Facebook.”