Microsoft is one step closer to ruling the world.
Contributing to Microsoft's quest to rule the world AND defeat Google's Android all in one fell swoop, AOL announced on Friday that it completed its $1.056 billion patent transaction with Microsoft.
According to Friday's announcement, the Redmond company now commands over 800 patents and their related patent applications. The company also now has a non-exclusive license to AOL's retained patent portfolio for aggregate proceeds of $1.056 billion in cash.
"The closing of this transaction represents another major step for AOL in increasing value for our shareholders," said Tim Armstrong, Chairman and CEO. "As our track record has shown, you should expect us to continue our momentum of creating and unlocking shareholder value through continued operational improvements and executing on our strategy."
AOL said that the transaction is expected to clear the way for the company to return more value to its shareholders while highlighting the AOL Board's commitment to enhancing value. The close will also enable AOL to continue to aggressively execute on its strategy to create long-term shareholder value.
"As a part of the transaction AOL also received a license to the patents being sold to Microsoft. AOL continues to hold a significant patent portfolio of over 300 patents and patent applications spanning core and strategic technologies, including advertising, search, content generation/management, social networking, mapping, multimedia/streaming, and security among others," the company said on Friday.
Microsoft agreed back in April to buy more than 800 patents and obtain non-exclusive license over 300 additional patents from AOL. The company's retained portfolio of patents are related to core and strategic technologies including advertising, search, content generation/management, social networking, mapping, multimedia/streaming, and security among others.
They still have over a million patents in free AOL disc technology.
microsoft making history here....while all govt is after poor google!!
MS making history? They aren't the first company to do that and won't be the last either. They can't be called a patent troll until their intent is shown, MS has done their share of suing based on patents but they have also allowed a lot of free use without licensing before as well. Maybe this is protection patents or defensive patents or maybe they will go full troll and attack everyone we don't know yet.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35TbGjt-weA
Where does it say anywhere in this article that they bought the patents for the intention to sue?
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MS has a proven track record of buying patents for the purpose of opening them up for everyone, to prevent litigation, or to re-inforce their own patents which are being litigated against by other trolls
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If you know different of course then please provide links to the hidden motives and I will happily recant