Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ: YHOO) doesn’t get much respect for any of its assets except for its ownership stake in Chinese e-commerce site Alibaba. But the company has a stable of patents totalling around 1,100, and some of these are related to social networking.
A story at TheStreet.com ponders the possible actions Yahoo might take to try to extract some value from its patents in advance of the coming Facebook IPO. Yahoo did license some of its paid-search intellectual property to Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) prior to Google’s 2004 IPO. Yahoo could even cancel its search deal with Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT), which currently enjoys royalty-free use of Yahoo’s patented technology.
Whether or not Yahoo’s low-key approach to enforcing its patents will continue or whether the company will get more aggressive will be interesting to see. Certainly some of the company’s big shareholders would like to see a higher share price for Yahoo, and going after patent violations could be one way to enhance Yahoo’s value.
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