In what appears to be the start of a litigation trend that will blow up after Facebook’s forthcoming IPO…

Facebook and Yahoo are in (pre-litigation) licensing discussions

Yahoo and Facebook met earlier this week for what is seen as a discussion relating to licensing revenue that Yahoo is seeking from Facebook based on the latter’s use of patented methods from a dozen or so Yahoo patents. Yahoo is looking to monetize its patents and Facebook appears to have deep pockets (as of now). A search of US patents and applications assigned to Yahoo, brought up 1,020 issued patents and 2,130 applications. Facebook has 20 issued US patents and about 40 published applications – although it has stated it has 56 patents and 410 applications in its IPO prospectus. Facebook’s market cap may be around $100B at IPO, while Yahoo has a market cap closer to $18B.