Microsoft to Buy Most of AOL’s Patent Library

Microsoft is going to buy the majority of AOL’s library of patents in a deal which is said to be worth around  $1.06 billion.

A statement the company said that the new agreement includes the intellectual property rights to around 800 inventions and as a result of the deal Microsoft will also be granted the licensing rights to a further 300 patents that AOL has on file.

The news is the latest in a series of similar deals that have been struck between technology firms. Experts state that the firms are doing these deals so that they can minimise the effect of lawsuits from other companies who are claiming that they have stolen one or more of their patents.

If a company successfully wins in court over a patent battle then this can mean that the other company has to ban its sales of that product or pay an expense bill in legal fees.

Since the beginning of this year both Google and Facebook are amongst the companies who have struck patent deals with other technology companies in the hope that it will save them from lengthy and costly lawsuits.

AOL aid that it planned on passing a healthy amount of the sale of patents to its shareholders.