Last month AOL agreed to sell 925 patents to Microsoft for $1.1 billion and granted Microsoft a non-exclusive license to its remaining software patents relating to advertising, search, social networking, mapping, streaming and security. Next Facebook agreed to buy 625 patents from Microsoft for $550 million. This month AOL announced a plan to give shareholders 100% of the proceeds from its $1.1 billion patent sale, but the details are being worked out. AOL stated it could think of no better use for the money. AOL may have gained investor goodwill on this transaction, but now it has no extra cash on hand to address the major challenges ahead.
See details in CNNMoney's article: AOL to give shareholders all proceeds from patent bonanza
Copyright © 2012 Robert Moll. All rights reserved.
