Microsoft and Facebook on Monday announced a $550 million patent agreement in which the social networking giant will purchase a portion of the patent portfolio Microsoft recently acquired recently from Aol. Facebook will take ownership of approximately 650 former Aol patents, and it will license the remaining patents owned by the software giant. Microsoft will retain ownership of approximately 275 Aol patents and will license the additional 650 Aol patents to be transferred to Facebook. “Today’s agreement with Facebook enables us to recoup over half of our costs while achieving our goals from the AOL auction,” said Brad Smith, executive vice president and general counsel of Microsoft. “As we said earlier this month, we had submitted the winning AOL bid in order to obtain a durable license to the full AOL portfolio and ownership of certain patents that complement our existing portfolio.” Ted Ullyot, Facebook’s general counsel, said, “this is another significant step in our ongoing process of building an intellectual property portfolio to protect Facebook’s interests over the long term.” The joint press release follows below.

Microsoft, Facebook Announce Patent Agreement

April 23, 2012
REDMOND, Wash. and MENLO PARK, Calif. — April 23, 2012 — Microsoft Corp. and Facebook announced today a definitive agreement under which Microsoft will assign to Facebook the right to purchase a portion of the patent portfolio it recently agreed to acquire from AOL Inc. Facebook has agreed to purchase this portion for $550 million in cash.

In the initial AOL auction, Microsoft secured the ability to own or assign approximately 925 U.S. patents and patent applications plus a license to AOL’s remaining patent portfolio, which contains approximately 300 additional patents that were not for sale.

As a result of today’s agreement, Facebook will obtain ownership of approximately 650 AOL patents and patent applications, plus a license to the AOL patents and applications that Microsoft will purchase and own.

Upon closing of this transaction with Facebook, Microsoft will retain ownership of approximately 275 AOL patents and applications; a license to the approximately 650 AOL patents and applications that will now be owned by Facebook; and a license to approximately 300 patents that AOL did not sell in its auction.

“Today’s agreement with Facebook enables us to recoup over half of our costs while achieving our goals from the AOL auction,” said Brad Smith, executive vice president and general counsel, Microsoft. “As we said earlier this month, we had submitted the winning AOL bid in order to obtain a durable license to the full AOL portfolio and ownership of certain patents that complement our existing portfolio.”

“Today’s agreement with Microsoft represents an important acquisition for Facebook,” said Ted Ullyot, general counsel, Facebook. “This is another significant step in our ongoing process of building an intellectual property portfolio to protect Facebook’s interests over the long term.”

The parties are evaluating the accounting treatment for these transactions. These transactions are also subject to customary closing conditions, including clearance under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act of 1976, as amended.

Intel and RealNetworks announced on Thursday that Intel will purchase video codec software, 190 patents and 170 patent applications from RealNetworks for a total of $120 million. “We believe this agreement enhances our ability to continue to offer richer experiences and innovative solutions to end users across a wide spectrum of devices, including through Ultrabook devices, smartphones and digital media,” said Renee James, Intel senior vice president and general manager of the Software and Services Group. The two companies also agreed to work together on future advancements in video codec software. “RealNetworks does not anticipate that the sale of the approximately 190 patents and 170 patent applications and next generation video codec software will have any material impact on its businesses,” the company said in a statement. RealNetworks’s full press release follows after the break.

Intel to Buy Patents and Next Generation Video Codec Software From RealNetworks

SEATTLE, Jan. 26, 2012 /PRNewswire/ — RealNetworks, Inc. (Nasdaq: RNWK) today announced that it has signed an agreement to sell a significant number of its patents and its next generation video codec software to Intel Corporation for a purchase price of $120 million. Under terms of the sale, RealNetworks retains certain rights to continue to use the patents in current and future products.

“Selling these patents to Intel unlocks some of the substantial and unrealized value of RealNetworks assets,” said Thomas Nielsen, RealNetworks President and CEO. “It represents an extraordinary opportunity for us to generate additional capital to boost investments in new businesses and markets while still protecting our existing business.

The European Union will decide on February 13th whether or not to give its blessing to Google’s planned purchase of Motorola Mobility. Google recently provided European courts with more information in support of the merger, Reuters said. The European Union suspended its review of the merger on December 12th pending Google’s submission of documents that are considered “essential to its evaluation of the transaction.” Google announced on August 15th its intentions to purchase Motorola Mobility for $12.5 billion and said the purchase will bolster its patent portfolio and help it defend its Android partners against competitors such as Apple and Microsoft.

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Poor sales of the Nokia Lumia 800 and 710 may have prompted Nokia to resume acquisition talks with Microsoft during November, according to a recent Forbes interview with influential Russian tech blogger Eldar Murtazin. Rumors that Nokia was considering selling off its smartphone business to Microsoft first surfaced in June but were quickly shot down by both companies. Murtazin said, however, that the talks resumed again this past November and that it’s possible Nokia could be interested in selling its smartphone business to Microsoft and then focusing on delivering its next-generation feature phones in emerging markets and elsewhere. Nokia on Thursday denied all speculation surrounding the rumored potential deal. Murtazin also claims that Nokia only sold 2,000 Lumia devices in Russia during its first two weeks of availability.

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Google recently purchased 217 patents from IBM, including 28 published patents and 188 of IBM’s granted patents. The transaction was posted in the United States Patent and Trademark Office’s assignment database on Tuesday. SEO by the Sea said the patents are related to email administration, IM apps, video conferencing, presentation software and more. It remains unclear how much Google paid for the patents, but the company also purchased 1,000 patents from IBM in July of last year and another 1,023 in September. Google is currently in the process of acquiring Motorola Mobility as well, which has a vast patent portfolio that Google said will help it defend its Android partners from patent lawsuits filed by litigious competitors such as Microsoft and Apple.

[Via Engadget]

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Samsung will purchase Sony’s 50% share of S-LCD, a joint venture created by both companies in 2004, for $939.6 million. Both companies will continue to cooperate on the development of new LCD panel technology, however, and Sony says it hopes to “secure a flexible and steady supply” of LCD panels from Samsung moving forward. “With whole ownership of S-LCD, Samsung anticipates heightened flexibility, speed and efficiency in both panel production and business operations,” Samsung said in the statement. Samsung expects the purchase to be finalized by the end of January 2012 pending approval from regulatory authorities. The full press release follows after the break.

Sony and Samsung Shift to New LCD Panel Business Alliance
•Samsung to acquire all of Sony’s shares of S-LCD, making the joint venture its wholly-owned subsidiary
•Sony and Samsung enter into a strategic agreement for supply and purchase of LCD panels.

Tokyo, Japan - Sony Corporation (“Sony”) and Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. (“Samsung”) today announced that the two companies have signed agreements to transition the current business relationship with respect to LCD panels.

Under the agreement, Samsung will acquire all of Sony’s shares of S-LCD Corporation (“S-LCD”), the two companies’ LCD panel manufacturing joint venture, making S-LCD a wholly owned subsidiary of Samsung. In consideration for the share transfer, cash consideration of approximately KRW 1.08 trillion^* will be paid to Sony by Samsung. Concurrently, the two companies have entered into a new strategic agreement for the supply and purchase of LCD panels with a goal of enhancing the competitiveness of both companies. The agreement also allows Sony and Samsung to continue cooperative engineering efforts focused on LCD panel technology.

For Sony, this transaction will enable it to monetize its shares in S-LCD and aims to secure a flexible and steady supply of LCD panels from Samsung, based on market prices and without the responsibility and costs of operating a manufacturing facility. With whole ownership of S-LCD, Samsung anticipates heightened flexibility, speed and efficiency in both panel production and business operations.

Established in April 2004, S-LCD has continued to deliver advanced and cost-competitive LCD panels to both of its parent companies, contributing to the expansion of the respective parties’ TV businesses, and the large-sized LCD TV market overall. However, LCD panel and TV market conditions have now changed. In order to respond to such challenging conditions and to strengthen their respective market competitiveness, the two companies have agreed to shift to a new LCD panel business alliance.

The share transfer and payment are targeted to close by the end of January 2012, subject to necessary approvals from regulatory authorities.

As a result of this transaction, a non-cash impairment loss of approximately JPY 66 billion is expected to be incurred by Sony in the third quarter of the fiscal year ending March 31, 2012, due to the reevaluation of its S-LCD shares. This loss includes an impact from the fluctuation of exchange rate. Despite this one-time loss, Sony estimates that the transaction will result in substantial savings on and after January 1, 2012 in respect of costs associated with its procurement of LCD panels. The current estimate of the yearly savings in respect of such costs is approximately JPY 50 billion, compared to LCD panel procurement costs estimated for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2012. Neither the one-time loss nor the estimated cost savings were included in Sony’s forecast of consolidated financial results for the current fiscal year ending March 31, 2012, announced on November 2, 2011. Sony is currently reevaluating this forecast, taking into account this transaction and other factors that might affect its full year FY2011 consolidated financial results forecast.

Facts about S-LCD

Established

:April 26, 2004

Capital

:KRW 3.3 Trillion

(Samsung Electronics: 50% plus 1 share, Sony: 50% minus 1 share)

 

Representative

:Donggun Park, CEO

Location

:Tangjeong, Chung Cheong Nam-Do, South Korea

Production Items

:7th and 8th generation Amorphous TFT LCD

*Note: The final amount of such payment will be determined based on S-LCD’s financial statements as of the end of December 2011.

Mediatech Capital managing partner Porter Bibb believes Verizon Communications is seriously considering making a bid for Netflix. Rumors swirled around recently suggesting that Verizon may team up with the kiosk movie rental service Redbox in 2012 to create its own streaming service to compete head-to-head with Netflix, although perhaps Verizon Communications is considering a different strategy. “I am hearing rumblings from inside Verizon that they are very serious about either Netflix or something similar,” Bibb told Bloomberg on Tuesday. Verizon CEO Lowell McAdam confirmed earlier this month that the company is looking to enter the steaming-video space in an effort to bolster its FiOS offering.

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Apple may be preparing to purchase Anobit, an fabless Israeli firm that specializes in flash storage solutions for mobile and enterprise markets. The Cupertino-based company could be willing to spend between $400 million and $500 million on Anobit, Calcalist reported Tuesday. Anobit’s website says its memory signal processing (MSP) technology “significantly improves endurance, performance and cost of flash storage products and systems.” Apple is reportedly already an Anobit customer for its MacBook Air, iPhone and iPad product families. Anobit was founded in 2006, holds 95 total patents and currently employs about 200 people.

[Via TechCrunch]

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Google on Wednesday took the wraps off a new and improved music service. Building onto “Music Beta by Google,” Google has launched Google Music, a publicly available cloud-based music services that will be free to users in the United States. Google Music users can add up to 20,000 songs from their local libraries to the cloud and stream them to any number of supported devices over the Internet. “Pinned” albums and songs are downloaded to devices and cached for local playback without the need for an Internet connection. Read on for more.

The service is integrated with the Android Market, allowing users to purchase 320Kbps songs from within the Market starting at $0.99 a track. Features include a curated music section, a recommendation engine, a name-your-own-price self-managed “artist hub” for independent artists, integration with YouTube for artists, music playback from within the Market, auto-transfer of purchases to your online locker, carrier billing (T-Mobile will soon become the first carrier to support carrier billing) and several sharing features that are integrated with Google+, Google’s new social network. Purchased tracks that are shared with users via Google+ can be played once for free, and then users can click through to purchase tracks they want to buy.

In an interesting twist, Google worked with artists including The Rolling Stones, Coldplay, Pearl Jam, Dave Matthews, Shakira and Busta Rhymes to offer tracks and live albums that are exclusive to Google Music and unavailable anywhere else.

EMI Music, Universal, Sony Music Entertainment and 23 independent labels have signed on as content partners. The new enhanced Google Music service is available immediately online, and updated Google Music apps will trickle out to phones and tablets in the coming days.

Huawei announced on Monday its intentions to purchase Symantec’s 49% stake in Huawei Symantec, a joint venture between the two companies that was originally formed in 2008, giving Huawei full control of the company. “The integration of Huawei Symantec’s innovative security and storage technology with Huawei’s enterprise products will reinforce Huawei’s leading position in cloud computing,” said Guo Ping, deputy chairman of Huawei.” The $530 million purchase is still pending regulatory approval, but Huawei expects the deal to close during the first quarter of 2012. Read on for the full press release.

Huawei Acquires Symantec Stake in Huawei Symantec Joint Venture

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. and SHENZHEN, China – Nov 14, 2011 – Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. (Huawei) and Symantec Corp. (Nasdaq: SYMC) today announced an agreement on a transaction where Huawei will acquire Symantec’s 49 percent stake in Huawei Symantec Technologies Co., Ltd. (Huawei Symantec) for USD $530 million. Upon closing, the agreement will give Huawei full ownership of Huawei Symantec.

Huawei Symantec is a Hong Kong-based joint venture established by Huawei and Symantec in 2008.The company provides customers with innovative security, storage and systems management solutions. Over the past few months, Huawei and Symantec have held several rounds of discussions and negotiations over the future of the joint venture. Huawei and Symantec have mutually agreed that the next stage of growth for the joint venture would benefit from the direction of a single owner.

“I am thrilled that Huawei Symantec will become a key pillar of Huawei’s ICT solutions. The integration of Huawei Symantec’s innovative security and storage technology with Huawei’s enterprise products will reinforce Huawei’s leading position in cloud computing,” said Guo Ping, Deputy Chairman of Huawei. “Huawei Symantec has achieved tremendous success in the past four years, having built a portfolio of products and solutions that are widely recognized by our customers and business partners. Looking ahead, Huawei will continue to increase investment in Huawei Symantec, reaffirming its commitment to customers.”

“Symantec achieved the objectives we set four years ago and exit the joint venture with a good return on our investment, increased penetration into China and a growing appliance business,” said Enrique Salem, president and chief executive officer, Symantec. “Today, China is one of Symantec’s fastest growing markets. It has grown 46 percent over the last three fiscal years. We remain committed to ongoing investment in China as well as building additional relationships in the region. Expertise gained from this endeavor has also led to our growing appliance business that provides our customers the additional choice of Symantec market leading security and storage software in an easy to deploy appliance.”

The agreement is subject to regulatory approvals and other customary closing conditions and is expected to close in the first quarter of 2012. Until the closing, Huawei and Symantec will continue to comply with their commitments under the existing joint venture agreements.

Webcast and Conference Call Information

Symantec will host a conference call and webcast today at 2 p.m. PT / 5 p.m. ET to discuss the sale of Symantec’s shares of the Huawei Symantec joint venture. The live discussion can be accessed by dialing 888-726-2470 domestic and 913-312-1430 internationally, passcode 2427376. An audio webcast of the call will also be available at www.symantec.com/invest. Please go to the website at least 15 minutes early to register, download and install any necessary audio software. A replay of the call will be available via webcast at www.symantec.com/invest.

Amazon recently quietly purchased Yap, a Charlotte-based company that specializes in voice-to-text technology. CLTBlog, a Charlotte-focused website, discovered a recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) that doesn’t actually name Amazon as the purchaser of Yap, but it does attribute the acquisition to a company called “Dion Acquisition Sub,” and the “Surviving Corporation” listed by the SEC has the same address as an Amazon.com office located on 410 Terry Avenue in Seattle, Washington. Read on for more.

According to Yap’s website, it appears the company’s voicemail service was shut down during October of this year, a month after the SEC documents say the purchase was completed. It appears likely that Amazon will use Yap’s voice recognition technology to compete directly with Apple’s virtual personal assistant, Siri. The online retailer will soon release its first Android tablet, the Kindle Fire, and rumors dating back as far as May have suggested the company may be working on an entire family of devices, including smartphones.

Yap, like Siri, could be a valuable addition to Amazon’s tablets and also to a possible smartphone offering the retailer has been rumored to be developing. Neither Amazon nor Yap have confirmed the purchase.

[Via The Atlantic]

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AT&T has pushed back the date it expects to close the books on its planned merger with T-Mobile and spectrum purchase from Qualcomm, The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday. The carrier had originally planned to close both acquisitions by March of 2012, although it now expects the required approvals to take as much as three months longer to gain. The carrier now says the deal should be approved by the end of the first half next year. AT&T recently ran into speed bumps with both deals. In August the Federal Communications Commission announced that it would review both AT&T’s spectrum purchase from Qualcomm and its merger with T-Mobile USA at the same time. Later that month, the U.S. government sued AT&T in an effort to block the T-Mobile acquisition. AT&T has argued that the T-Mobile purchase will provide jobs and improve wireless service for Americans. It also responded to the FCC lawsuit, saying it will “vigorously contest [the] matter in court.”

MetroPCS is interested in purchasing spectrum and subscribers from AT&T and T-Mobile, Bloomberg said Friday. Leap Wireless and Dish Network were also approached and Leap may still be interested in making an offer. The deal with MetroPCS would likely amount to less than $4 billion. In August, The Wall Street Journal revealed AT&T had hired Bank of America’s Merill Lynch to advise it on selling as much as $8 billion in assets. Later that month, the United States government sued to block the planned merger when the U.S. Justice Department said the deal would “substantially lessen competition” in the U.S. wireless market. Read on for more.

AT&T approached a number of carriers in September, including Sprint, offering to sell assets in an effort to remedy competition concerns. It remains unclear if selling assets will help it gain government approval.

“Spinning off some of T-Mobile’s customers or network doesn’t really remedy the government’s issue with the merger, which is that T-Mobile is such a disruptive and significant competitor that anything which makes them no longer independent would be unacceptable,” Duane Morris LLP lawyer Glenn Manishin explained to Bloomberg.

Manishin also noted that any sale of assets to Leap or MetroPCS would likely not be large enough to boost either carrier to a position where it might compete with AT&T, Sprint or Verizon Wireless on a national scale.

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Rumor has it Microsoft is again toying with the idea of purchasing Yahoo. The Redmond, Washington-based company may partner with another unnamed firm in an effort to make a bid, an anonymous Microsoft executive told Reuters on Wednesday. However, Reuters noted that other divisions inside Microsoft are still not sold on making an offer on the troubled search engine. AllThingsD said rumors about Microsoft’s interest are not true and that the company is not currently interested in acquiring Yahoo. Several other companies are said to be interested in purchasing Yahoo, which recently fired its CEO Carol Bartz, including DST Global, Providence Equity Partners, Alibaba, Hellman & Friedman and Silverlake Partners. Microsoft made an offer for Yahoo in 2008 before cutting off all discussions.

Read [Reuters] Read [AllThingsD]

HP announced on Monday that it has followed through with its intentions to acquire Autonomy and has purchased the enterprise information technology firm for £25.50 per share in cash. HP will allow Autonomy to operate as an entirely separate arm; Autonomy will continue to be led by its founder and CEO Dr. Mike Lynch, who will report to HP’s newly appointed CEO Meg Whitman. “We are committed to helping our customers solve their toughest IT challenges,” HP president and chief executive officer Meg Whitman said. “The exploding growth of unstructured and structured data and unlocking its value is the single largest opportunity for consumers, businesses and governments. Autonomy significantly increases our capabilities to manage and extract meaning from that data to drive insight, foresight and better decision making.” Read on for the full press release.

HP Acquires Control of Autonomy Corporation

Positions HP as a leader in fast-growing enterprise information management and data market

HP today announced that it has acquired control of Autonomy Corporation.

Holders of 213,421,299 Autonomy shares have accepted HP’s previously announced offer to purchase the entire share capital of Autonomy at a price of £25.50 per share in cash, representing approximately 87.34 percent of the current issued share capital of Autonomy. As such, all conditions relating to the offer have now been satisfied, allowing HP to acquire control of Autonomy.

The acquisition positions HP as a leader in the large and growing enterprise information management space. Autonomy’s software offerings power more than 25,000 customer accounts worldwide and, as part of HP, will provide high-value business solutions to help customers manage the explosion of unstructured and structured information. Autonomy offers solutions that are complementary across HP’s enterprise offerings and strengthens the company’s data analytics, cloud, industry and workflow management capabilities.

“We are committed to helping our customers solve their toughest IT challenges. The exploding growth of unstructured and structured data and unlocking its value is the single largest opportunity for consumers, businesses and governments,” said Meg Whitman, HP president and chief executive officer. “Autonomy significantly increases our capabilities to manage and extract meaning from that data to drive insight, foresight and better decision making.”

As previously announced, Autonomy will operate as a separate business unit. Dr. Mike Lynch, the founder and chief executive officer of Autonomy, will continue to lead the Autonomy business and will report to Whitman.

“This is a historic day for Autonomy, our employees and the customers we serve, as we combine HP’s phenomenal assets and Autonomy’s specialized skills to produce systems that handle all the information in the enterprise, regardless of the format it is in,” said Lynch. “We are at the dawn of a new era when it is the ‘I’ in IT that is changing, not just the ‘T.’”

HP’s offer to purchase the remaining Autonomy shares remains open. Further information is available at www.hp.com/investor/offerdocuments.