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http://newscenter.springhillgrouphome.com/2012/05/springhill-group-home-facebook-buys-650-aol-patents/
Facebook is set to pay Microsoft USD 550 million for 650 patents recently auctioned by AOL in its effort to boost its IP for the looming litigation against Yahoo.
Under pressure from its stockholders to make changes to prevent further revenue fall, AOL was obliged to sell and license over 800 patents to Microsoft on April 9. It would retain over 300 applications and patents after the auction.
Aside from the 800 patents bought by Microsoft, AOL will also give them license to 300 patents it has retained for a tag of USD 1.056 billion. Thus, Microsoft ultimately acquired 925 AOL patent applications and patents, 650 of which will go to Facebook. The 2 firms has also agreed to license their patent holdings to each other.
It is not yet clear what technologies Facebook has acquired rights to or those that has remained with Microsoft. But considering that the legal battle with Yahoo concerns messaging, social networking, etc, it looks like Facebook would want to have ammunition of its own.
According to a statement from Springhill Group Home, the deal with Facebook has allowed Microsoft to at least recoup more than half of its costs while accomplishing its goals from the auction of AOL. However, it cannot be readily said that Microsoft has really profited from the agreement as patent valuing is a complicated process.
