Snippet: Another Billion Spent (AOL/Microsoft) ☇

As if Facebook’s purchase of Instagram wasn’t ridiculous, it now seems Microsoft is spending just over $1 billion to acquire some patents from AOL instead of actual components:

AOL Inc. today announced that the Company has entered into a definitive agreement to sell over 800 of its patents and their related patent applications to Microsoft Corporation and to grant Microsoft a non-exclusive license to its retained patent portfolio for aggregate proceeds of $1.056 billion in cash.

Following the sale, AOL will continue to hold a significant patent portfolio of over 300 patents and patent applications spanning core and strategic technologies, including advertising, search, content generation/management, social networking, mapping, multimedia/streaming, and security among others. AOL also received a license to the patents being sold to Microsoft.

At least it wasn’t Facebook…