AOL patents are apparently up for grabs and a lot of companies are trying to lay their hands on it. Earlier, Microsoft had purchased AOL patents and then sold them to Facebook for a whopping $500 million. And now, AOL has sealed yet another deal with Microsoft, selling out nearly 75% of its patents to the software giant.
The deal raked in $1.056 billion, so it was not at all a bad deal for AOL who has little value for these patents. The best part for AOL is that it can continue to use the patents even after it has sold them to Microsoft.
The billion-dollar deal brings some 800 out of 1100 of AOL patents to Microsoft, lending Microsoft the non-exclusive license to the rest of the patents.
It is expected that these newly acquired patents by Microsoft will also go into a deal between the social network giant, Facebook and Microsoft. Microsoft had earlier too sold 600 of AOL patents to Facebook and is set to sell more of these to the company. Facebook is probably amassing these patents to safeguard it against any potential patent claims in the future.
AOL has lost the charm it had, as a company, to the users and so naturally, it has trying to adopting to the changed circumstances to survive. According to a statement issued by the company, “The closing of this transaction represents another major step for AOL in increasing value for our shareholders. You should expect us to continue our momentum of creating and unlocking shareholder value… to return more value to shareholders and… create long-term shareholder value.”
Source: AOL
Courtesy: The Verge
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