AOL closes $1b patent sale with Microsoft

AOL is now in the clear and looking forward to what it can do with the badly-needed extra cash.

AOL announced that it had closed its mega-patent deal with Microsoft, with Microsoft paing $1.056 billion for a portfolio filled with more than 800 patents.

The two tech giants first announced the deal back in early April — only for Microsoft to then pull a switcheroo, selling more than 600 of the acquired patents to Facebook for $550 million.

Regardless of the Facebook matter, AOL is now in the clear and looking forward to what it can do with the badly-needed extra cash.

But AOL didn't give away all of the patents in its repertoire. The beleaguered internet provider still owns over 300 patents and patent applications, covering advertising, search, content generation/management, social networking, mapping, multimedia/streaming and security. AOL also received a license to the patents being sold to Microsoft.

AOL chairman and CEO Tim Armstrong remarked in a statement that "you should expect us to continue our momentum of creating and unlocking shareholder value, through continued operational improvements and executing on our strategy".

Specifically, AOL has promised to return 100 per cent of the patent proceeds to shareholders. A plan on how to do this is still being hammered out. AOL is expected to reveal a roadmap by the end of June.

Via ZDNet US