Amazon

The fight to retain investors is on. In response to Yahoo!’s recent patent infringement suit, Facebook has filed a counterclaim using ten patents of its own. Well, sort of their own. Of the patents asserted, only two were originally assigned to Facebook, which further illustrates our point that Facebook's patent activity is indicative of a company desperate for patent protection. However, Yahoo!’s litigation indicates desperation for revenue, having recently announced plans to layoff 14% of its employees. Could this fight have been avoided, sparing both litigation expenses and JOBS?

Amazon owns a growing set of social networking patents that describe key aspects of Facebook and legally predate Facebook by seven (7) years. Given Facebook’s strategy of back-filling its patent portfolio to retroactively protect itself (i.e. the company filed over 410 US patent applications in the past 18 months vs its 56 granted US patents), what do these Amazon patents mean to Facebook's investors and its forecast $100 billion dollar valuation?

It's settled. We've figured out Microsoft's costume for this year's Halloween party: Ralphie's pink bunny suit from A Christmas Story.

Why?

Given its licensing program – and recently, its agreement with Quanta, Amazon’s Kindle Fire manufacturer – why not? A look at Microsoft’s IP Licensing page tells us the company “has entered into more than 700 licensing agreements and continues to develop programs that make it possible for customers, partners and competitors to access its growing, broad patent and IP portfolio.”