AOL Sells Its Patents To Microsoft For $1 Billion: Microsoft Now Owns Netscape IP

from the not-quite-a-troll dept

Mon, Apr 9th 2012 2:28pm — Mike Masnick

Just a few weeks ago, we had mentioned reports that AOL was looking to sell its patents. Sometimes, those kinds of things take a while, and may even involve auctions and whatnot. However, it looks like AOL got the deal done quickly, selling over 800 patents to Microsoft for just over $1 billion. The "good news" here is that the patents don't end up in the hands of a pure patent troll, who will do nothing but sue over them. The bad news, of course, is that Microsoft is quite aggressive in suing others for patent infringement anyway, and you can expect some of these patents to start showing up in wasteful, innovation-hindering lawsuits before too long. And, of course, there's the natural dead-weight loss of a ton of money going into buying patents, rather than directly into actual innovation.

Of course, there's an interesting twist in all of this. Peter Kafka notes that Microsoft basically bought all Netscape assets outside of the name/trademarks, etc. From a historical standpoint, that's pretty interesting, seeing as how big the early internet battle was between Microsoft and Netscape for who would win the war to control the window into the internet. It would then be especially ironic (and ridiculous) if Microsoft used those patents to sue others, after spending so much time trying to kill off Netscape... Such is the bizarre world of patents these days, I guess.

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Filed Under: innovation, patent warfare
Companies: aol, microsoft

18 Comments

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Jay (profile), 9 Apr 2012 @ 2:28pm

Oh great...
Now we have to deal with Microsoft threatening Mozilla since it's based on Netscape before all of the hubbub...
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- :Lobo Santo (profile), 9 Apr 2012 @ 2:38pm
  
  Re: Oh great...
  "Yeah, you know, a monopolist's work is never done. No such thing as a perfect monopoly. Seems like you can never get that last one-tenth of one percent."
  -Snow Crash
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- P3T3R5ON, 9 Apr 2012 @ 4:49pm
  
  Re: Oh great...
  Hopefully people (judges) still understand the concept of being 'grandfathered-in' and Mozilla will be safe.
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PlagueSD (profile), 9 Apr 2012 @ 2:46pm

Wait...what???
I guess the "new" saying is, "If you can't beat them...Buy them."

This will get interesting...
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fogbugzd (profile), 9 Apr 2012 @ 2:54pm

Wouldn't most of these patents be pretty old? If they are from the early years of Netscape they must be approaching expiration in a few years. It seems to me there would also be some laches issues with the patents.
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- PlagueSD (profile), 9 Apr 2012 @ 3:16pm
  
  Re:
  That's a good point. Unless I'm mistaken, patents only last 20 years. If that's true, then AOL made out like a bandit for selling patents that are about to expire for $1 billion.
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  - not important, 10 Apr 2012 @ 8:20am
    
    Re: Re:
    Maybe ms can right this off as charity..
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- Lawrence D'Oliveiro, 9 Apr 2012 @ 3:17pm
  
  Re: It seems to me there would also be some laches issues with the patents.
  If laches were a serious doctrine, there could never be submarine patents.
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iPhone application guy, 9 Apr 2012 @ 10:14pm

It was just a matter of time.
Thanks for the update and insight. I heard about this a while back and have been waiting for it to happen. It has been interesting to watch this develop and it will be interesting to see what Microsoft does next!
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apauld, 9 Apr 2012 @ 10:35pm

so, two prostitutes...
...just exchanged some serious STDs. Awesome; here's hoping they both die from Syphillis; an old school disease that they are both to arrogant to acknowledge the exitence of...
apauld.
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Suzanne Lainson (profile), 9 Apr 2012 @ 10:52pm

Big tech companies have a lot in common with big companies in any inudstry
With big tech companies buying patents from each other, it's become something of a major league game these days.

Microsoft to Buy AOL Patents for More Than $1 Billion - NYTimes.com: "While Microsoft is struggling in the smartphone market, it is doing a brisk business in licensing its intellectual property to smartphone makers using rival software, analysts say."
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- Suzanne Lainson (profile), 10 Apr 2012 @ 12:04am
  
  Re: Big tech companies have a lot in common with big companies in any inudstry
  While some tech stories have been spun over the years as being about grassroots empowerment, I think our economic system encourages, in the end, power and money plays. Tech doesn't seem any more immune to this than any other industry. (If anything, young multi-billionaire tech entrepreneurs are glorified: it really IS about the money.)
  
  So now the big tech companies are the status quo, and perhaps something new will come along and upset them and begin the process anew. Right now I like the shareable/sustainability/localization movements as counterbalances to the establishment.
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Zenstrive (profile), 10 Apr 2012 @ 12:41am

The only war that hinders technological advancements is patent war. I guess. World War I and II promote advancements. Cold War promote advancements. Well, mostly on how we kill each others, but still...
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RT Cunningham (profile), 10 Apr 2012 @ 2:30am

OSS
I think I now understand why Google pursued Chromium. It's the least patented tech so far (except maybe by them with the wicked stepdaughter known as Chrome).
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AlexNagy (profile), 10 Apr 2012 @ 7:27am

What?!
I just died a little bit today.

FWIW, I have an official install disk of Netscape Communicator 4.7 at home. Never getting rid of it, after all, it's part of history (now that MS owns Netscape IP...).
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Jeff Downer, 10 Apr 2012 @ 7:32am

Maybe Microsoft can buy Mosaic next.
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- TtfnJohn (profile), 10 Apr 2012 @ 10:24am
  
  Re:
  The original IE was pretty much Mosaic wrapped in new clothes and foisted on us as something "new and improved" which only goes to show that what works for selling detergents seems to work just as well for "selling" software!
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Ninja (profile), 13 Apr 2012 @ 11:53am

If only this would enable Microsoft to make good, functional and secure browsers...
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