Categories
Close
Menu
Menu
Close
Search
Search

Featured Articles

RSS
123

Opinion Articles

News

Microsoft sells hundreds of AOL patents to Facebook

Mark

Share:

Print

Rate article:

No rating
Rate this article:
No rating

A couple of weeks ago Microsoft agreed to acquire around 925 patents and associated patent applications from AOL in a deal worth just over one billion dollars (£664 million).

Microsoft has now agreed to let Facebook buy a portion of that patent portfolio for $550 million. Facebook will end up owning approximately 650 AOL patents and patent applications. It’ll also have a license to the remaining AOL patents and applications owned by Microsoft, while Microsoft will have a license to the AOL patents and applications owned by Facebook.

Brad Smith, executive vice president and general counsel at Microsoft, said “Today’s agreement with Facebook enables us to recoup over half of our costs while achieving our goals from the AOL auction. As we said earlier this month, we had submitted the winning AOL bid in order to obtain a durable license to the full AOL portfolio and ownership of certain patents that complement our existing portfolio.”

Comments

Collapse Expand Comments (0)
You don't have permission to post comments.

Recent Podcasts

ExclusiveMicrosoft, Nokia, Verizon and Vodafone: the latest mobile industry news

We're back after a short break last week - and just in time for three of the biggest industry news stories of the year.

Microsoft's CEO announces his retirement, then Vodafone sells its US operation for $130 billion... and now Nokia's mobile phone business is being bought. Alongside these reports there's also time to talk about 4G in the UK, children with mobiles, roaming charges and the future of smartphones.

ExclusiveDavid Akka talks about Google's future and declares that Android is dead

In this special feature we're talking to David Akka, who tells us why he says Android is dead, why Chromecast is an omen for the mobile industry, why OS companies are getting into hardware and what the future holds for the mobile industry.

David is UK managing director of Magic Software and describes himself as a 'recovering techie'. His personal blog is at davidakka.com.

ExclusiveA week of mobile industry news, from smart meters to stupid drivers

There's good news for Telefonica as it's chosen to support the UK's smart meter rollout - but bad news for fans of the Microsoft Tag barcode, which is being discontinued in a couple of years' time.

We're also talking about drivers who use mobile phones illegally, Amazon's new service for mobile developers, the forthcoming Kazam smartphone, mobile advertising, satellite broadband, wearable security accessories and a word that's completely unacceptable to Motorola.

RSS
First1314151618202122Last

Follow thefonecast.com

Archive Calendar

«May 2026»
MonTueWedThuFriSatSun
27282930123
45678910
11121314151617
18192021222324
25262728293031
1234567

Archive