Yahoo: Patent Opportunist
/After years of positive relations, friendly blog posts, and referral traffic, Yahoo may have just been biding its time waiting declare war on Facebook. Today it suddenly accused its former ally of infringing on 10-20 of its patents. It demands a settlement from Facebook or it says it will sue.
The attack comes at a particularly vulnerable time for Facebook, during the quiet period leading up to its IPO. Facebook could be forced to license the patents or settle with Yahoo by paying out pre-IPO stock, the same way Google was coerced into giving Yahoo 2.7 million shares in patent settlement before the search giant’s 2004 IPO.
Shrewd move by Yahoo, but surely this pattern will eventually be noticed and Yahoo won't be able to exploit it's relationships any more. One day they'll have to come up with a non-patent-troll business plan to just admit that they lost.