Re: Facebook's News Feed Patent
There’s also some discussion going on about it here: https://buddypress.org/forums/topic/attachments-for-activity-items
I strongly doubt it will have any effect at all. Did you know even something as basic as the hyperlink has been patented? Just this website alone probably already infringes on dozens and dozens of existing software patents. Software companies generally don’t go after people who infringe on their patents until they might become a credible threat to their business model.
Furthermore, these kind of patents are all invalid outside of the US. So in a worst case scenario wordpress & buddypress would have to move some of their business to Europe. I highly doubt it would ever come to that though.