There's an arms race gripping the tech world, and the weapons of choice are patents. Microsoft is spending more than $i billion to buy 800 of them from AOL, a move that underscores just how fierce-and lucrative-the idea wars have become, especially as more Web activity shifts from PCs to smart phones and tablets. Thanks in part to its Exchange e-mail patents, for example, Microsoft gets a cut from roughly half of all sales of phones that run Google's Android operating system. Google, in turn, is spending $12.5 billion to acquire Motorola Mobility, whose patents include mobile devices and wireless technologies.
展开▼
