The "why now" is simply that AOL was going to sell the patents to somebody, and Microsoft concluded that is was a reasonable way to spend about a billion dollars. The "why" isn't so clear, yet.
One would have to assume Microsoft expects to be in some businesses, or to have a bigger role in some businesses, where such patents will ward off attacks based on patent infringement. In other cases firms also use patent portfolios to gain cross licensing of patents from other competitors.
The point is that Microsoft would not be spending about a billion dollars without expecting some business use of the patents.
The deal also includes Microsoft licensing of about 300 additional patents from AOL. Those presumably include patents related to advertising, search, content management, social networking and mapping.
AOL has a license to use technologies covered by the 800 patents sold to Microsoft, as well. About 140 of the patents relate to online communications, with the majority of these patents focused on instant messaging and email technology. These patents cover many features that are now standard in online chat, mobile messaging, and social in-network messaging applications.
For example, AOL has patents covering contact list management, status indicators and visibility settings, group messaging, the use of avatars and icons associated with chat profiles, as well as interoperability technology between various online messaging platforms.
Regarding email technology, AOL has a number of patents related to spam filtering, group message opt-in systems, and unified messaging (i.e., conversion of email to text and audio). AOL has also patented technologies for cross-language communications, both via email and online messaging. AOL owns 81 patents related to browser technologies and user interfaces.
1 comment:
By buying AOL's patents, Microsoft in effect owns AOL. No one else can acquire them. And $1B has minimal impact on Microsoft's stock price.
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