AOL and Microsoft on Monday announced an agreement in which the software giant will purchase 800 patents from AOL in a $1.056 billion cash deal. Microsoft will also license more than 300 additional patents from AOL as part of the agreement. “The agreement with Microsoft represents the culmination of a robust auction process for our patent portfolio,” said Tim Armstrong, AOL’s chairman and CEO. “We continue to hold a valuable patent portfolio as highlighted by the license we entered into wi...

Sprint is reportedly planning to walk away from its planned network-sharing deal with LightSquared as early as next week, Bloomberg reported on Wednesday. Sprint and LightSquared in June agreed to an 11-year deal that would share network expansion costs and equipment if LightSquared could secure regulatory approval for its 4G LTE network build-out. The carrier first gave LightSquared until the end of 2011 to receive FCC approval, and then extended the deadline to March 15th. The FCC blocked LightSquaredR...

Amazon on Wednesday announced that it has entered into a new agreement with Viacom to provide a larger selection of television content to its Kindle Fire and Amazon Prime customers. Under the deal, Amazon’s customers will have access to episodes of The Real World, Chapelle’s Show and the The Sarah Silverman Program from Comedy Central, as well as a number of hit shows from Nickelodeon. “This deal with Viacom brings Prime customers and Kindle Fire users thousands of comedies, kids’ shows,...

Nikesh Arora, Google’s SVP and Chief Business Officer, will run Motorola once the Google acquisition closes later this year, according to rumor published by Business Insider. Arora ran the company’s international business for Eric Schmidt, taking over the global business after the former CEO stepped down. Arora has reportedly been “agitating” for a CEO position and was included on a short list of candidates to head Yahoo. It is possible, however, that a promised CEO slot at Motorola c...

T-Mobile and AT&T have filed with the Federal Communications Commission to transfer $1 billion worth of AT&T’s AWS spectrum into T-Mobile USA’s ownership. AT&T previously promised the spectrum to Deutsche Telekom in the event that its bid to acquire T-Mobile USA failed. “This additional spectrum will help meet the growing demand for wireless broadband services,” Tom Sugrue, T-Mobile’s senior vice president for government affairs, told The Wall Street Journal. “We hop...

Microsoft is said to be close to finalizing a patent-licensing deal with Pantech. Microsoft already has similar agreements in place with Samsung, HTC, ViewSonic and other Android vendors; the company was aggressive in seeking patent-licensing deals with Android vendors in 2011 and is currently fighting to establish a licensing deal with Barnes & Noble, which has accused the company of charging “exorbitant licensing fees” and has even asked the federal government to probe Microsoft’s act...

Sprint recently told LightSquared that it has an additional 30 days to gain approval from the Federal Communications Commission to launch its 4G LTE network. Sprint said in March that it would deploy part of its planned 4G LTE network using LightSquared’s 1600MHz frequency spectrum, but LightSquared has yet to prove to the FCC that adjustments to its network no longer interfere with GPS technology. Sprint originally gave LightSquared until December 31st to gain the approval, which The Wall Street Journa...

Intel doesn’t have much of a presence in the mobile phone market right now, but that could change soon. The Santa Clara-based company announced recently that it has reached a deal with Inside Secure in which the French chip maker will supply Intel with NFC chips for upcoming products. “We are highly interested in NFC but we are not announcing any product plans at this time,” an Intel spokeswoman told The Wall Street Journal, noting that Intel might include Inside Secure’s technology ...

Sprint and Clearwire are close to inking a deal that will extend an existing network-sharing agreement an additional 3-5 years, Bloomberg Businessweek said Friday. The current agreement will terminate at the end of 2012. Allegedly, the deal is not final and could still fall through. If it is finalized, Sprint is poised to pay less for access to Clearwire’s network than it currently does. Clearwire has been seeking additional funding to help it build out a 4G LTE network, which is expected to cost $600 ...

One week after announcing a similar deal with Quanta, Microsoft on Sunday revealed a new licensing arrangement with consumer electronics original design manufacturer Compal Electronics, Inc. The Redmond, Washington-based software company has reached a deal with Compal whereby it will receive royalty payments on sales of Compal’s tablets, cell phones, eReaders and other devices powered by Google’s Android or Chrome platforms. With this new deal in place, Microsoft also now holds licensing agreement...

The founders of popular file sharing service Dropbox turned down a multimillion dollar acquisition offer from Apple, Forbes reported in a recent article. Several rumors have suggested the offer was as high as $800 million. Reportedly, founders Drew Houston and Arash Ferdowsi met with Steve Jobs in Cupertino in 2009. During the meeting, Steve Jobs made an offer to acquire Dropbox, noting that the company was “a feature, not a product,” and that Apple was going to enter the same market, Houston expl...

Rick Kaplan, chief of the Federal Communication Commission’s Wireless Telecommunications Bureau, sent a letter to AT&T on Thursday asking the carrier to clarify just how the proposed merger with T-Mobile USA will add jobs in the United States. “Our review of the information currently in our record suggests that AT&T’s responses on this issue remain incomplete,” Kaplan said. The FCC is giving AT&T until October 31st to address fully “all plans, analyses and reports dis...

Rumors of Sony’s plan to purchase Ericsson’s stake in the companies’ joint Sony Ericsson venture have come and gone over the years, but a new report claims the deed is nearly done. Sony is nearing a deal to take complete control of the cell phone vendor according to The Wall Street Journal, and analysts estimate that Ericsson’s 50% share of the JV could be worth between $1.3 billion and $1.7 billion. The report states that Sony intends to integrate the Sony Ericsson smartphone business...

Apple denied Samsung’s proposed deal in Australia that would allow the South Korea-based company to begin selling its Galaxy Tab 10.1 tablet there. Apple believes Samsung’s products are “copycat” versions of its iPad and iPhone, and that the touchscreen technology used in the Galaxy Tab 10.1 infringes on its patents. According to Reuters, Apple attorney Steven Burley said, “The main reason we are here is to prevent the launch of [the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1] and maintain the stat...