Twitter’s IBM patent haul cost $36 million
Micro-blogging site Twitter paid IBM $36 million for more than 900 patents last year, a company filing has shown.
The companies revealed the deal in January after signing it in December, but they did not disclose any financial details. They also signed a cross-licensing agreement.
These came three months after Twitter revealed that it had been accused by IBM of infringing three patents.
An amended S-1 form – issued when Twitter filed for an initial public offering last year – has now revealed that the IBM deal cost $36 million.
The filing shows that on December 31, 2013, Twitter had 956 issued patents and around 100 filed applications, in the US and “foreign countries”. The patents cover message distribution, graphical user interfaces, and security and related technologies.
The US patents are expected to expire between 2016 and 2031, the filing said.
In September, Microsoft agreed to license around 30,000 patents owned by Nokia as part of a €5.44 billion ($7.56 billion) buyout of the Finnish company’s mobile phone division. Google paid $12.5 billion for Motorola Mobility in 2011, acquiring 17,000 patents in the process.
Amended on March 6, the filing at the US Securities and Exchange Commission revealed that Twitter is involved in a “number of” intellectual property disputes.
“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,” the filing added.
It also showed that Twitter owns other forms of IP, including trade secrets, “confidential information, know-how and technical information”.
“While in certain cases we have agreements in place with employees and third parties that place restrictions on the use and disclosure of this intellectual property, these agreements may be breached, or this intellectual property may otherwise be disclosed or become known to our competitors, which could cause us to lose any competitive advantage resulting from this intellectual property,” said the filing.
In November last year, Twitter floated on the New York Stock Exchange with a value of $14.2 billion.
