AOL Sells Patents to Microsoft and Facebook buys Instagram -a Look at Value

, that Facebook has had the wind in its face (pardon the pun) rather than at its back. Given the accelerating rate at which the “next big thing” pops up on the Internet (Pinterest and Instagram being prime examples), it is hard to imagine that changed circumstances won’t lead to similar moves.  Zuckerberg and his team are learning that with dominance comes envy, scrutiny and a lot more entities looking to knock you off your perch. They are used to an environment former New York Mayor Ed Koch used to describe as, “I don’t get ulcers, I give them!”

With everyone in the tech space seemingly in court with everyone else over intellectual property issues, hidden or not, there can be no question that IP is valuable. Just how much, to whom, for what reasons and at what time as the saying goes, “Is why they play the games.” 

This leads to a final thought about value. As those who follow my musings on things related to the IP wars know, the 800 pound gorilla in all of this tends to be haggling over what constitutes FRAND (Fair, Reasonable and Nondiscriminatory) use of the IP of someone else. This is what regulation and litigation are mostly about setting aside emotion. It leads to a final question, who does one put a value on the moving target that is litigation? 

Thanks, Rich, for getting the ball rolling.

Edited by Juliana Kenny




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