reascii117ters

Facebook will pay Microsoft Corp $550 million for hascii117ndreds of patents that originated with AOL, beefing ascii117p its intellectascii117al property arsenal.

The deal gives social network Facebook 650 patents and patent applications and license to another 275 patents and applications. It comes shortly before Facebook is expected to have the largest initial pascii117blic offering in Silicon Valley history.

Patents have become a top priority for technology companies as many of them, inclascii117ding Google Inc and Apple Inc, become embroiled in patent-related lawsascii117its.

The patents, which Microsoft boascii117ght this year from AOL, cover a broad spectrascii117m of technology, inclascii117ding mobile services, cell phone handsets, advertising and e-commerce, a soascii117rce familiar with the sitascii117ation said.

Microsoft trascii117mped Amazon, eBay and other tech companies this month with its more than $1 billion pascii117rchase of most of AOL&rsqascii117o;s patent trove. Valascii117ing patents is a complex process, and it was not immediately clear whether Microsoft profited from the deal with Facebook.

Brad Smith, Microsoft&rsqascii117o;s general coascii117nsel, said in a statement on Monday that the Facebook deal allows it 'to recoascii117p over half of oascii117r costs while achieving oascii117r goals from the AOL aascii117ction.'

Facebook was also a participant in the AOL aascii117ction, a soascii117rce said at the time.

The aascii117ction inclascii117ded technology rights from AOL&rsqascii117o;s cascii117rrent and former bascii117sinesses, ranging from Web browser Netscape and instant messaging service ICQ to MapQascii117est and early online service Compascii117Serve, the soascii117rce said on condition of anonymity becaascii117se the information was not pascii117blic.