How patent wars block progress

Microsoft has just spent $1.1bn buying AOL’s patent portfolio. Is this a smart move or a symptom of a broken intellectual property system? Matthew Partridge investigates.

What are the details of the deal?

Software giant Microsoft has paid internet group AOL $1.1bn to buy more than 800 of the company's patents, and license around 300 others. Patents covered by the deal "include key internet functions involved in email and messaging, as well as location-based technologies that have come to assume greater significance as the internet has gone mobile", reports the Financial Times. Microsoft will also take over AOL unit Netscape (which made an internet browser that once was the main rival to Microsoft's Internet Explorer).

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Dr Matthew Partridge
Shares editor, MoneyWeek

Matthew graduated from the University of Durham in 2004; he then gained an MSc, followed by a PhD at the London School of Economics.

He has previously written for a wide range of publications, including the Guardian and the Economist, and also helped to run a newsletter on terrorism. He has spent time at Lehman Brothers, Citigroup and the consultancy Lombard Street Research.

Matthew is the author of Superinvestors: Lessons from the greatest investors in history, published by Harriman House, which has been translated into several languages. His second book, Investing Explained: The Accessible Guide to Building an Investment Portfolio, is published by Kogan Page.

As senior writer, he writes the shares and politics & economics pages, as well as weekly Blowing It and Great Frauds in History columns He also writes a fortnightly reviews page and trading tips, as well as regular cover stories and multi-page investment focus features.

Follow Matthew on Twitter: @DrMatthewPartri