Twitter pays 436 million to buy 900 IBM patents

YEREVAN, March 10. / ARKA /. Twitter, the microblogging service, paid $36 million for hundreds of IBM patents to avoid litigation, according to Bloomberg. The deal involves 900 patents, and settles a dispute of Twitter potentially infringing on at least three of IBM’s patents. The agreement was signed in December and revealed in January with no financial details.

San Francisco-based Twitter now has 956 patents under its belt with some 100 applications filed, the company wrote in the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission document. The company had only nine patents before going public last November, making it a target for disputes involving intellectual property, according to the article.

“We presently are involved in a number of intellectual property lawsuits, and as we face increasing competition and gain an increasingly high profile, we expect the number of patent and other intellectual property claims against us to grow,” Twitter wrote in the filing.

Armonk, N.Y.-based IBM holds the title of being granted the most U.S. patents for 21 consecutive years. This is Twitter’s first deal for patent technology without counting intellectual property it has acquired when buying other companies. -0-

Read the news first and discuss them in our Telegram

16:42 03/10/2014