Twitter paid $36 million to avoid patent lawsuit with IBM

Managing IP is part of Legal Benchmarking Limited, 1-2 Paris Gardens, London, SE1 8ND

Copyright © Legal Benchmarking Limited and its affiliated companies 2025

Accessibility | Terms of Use | Privacy Policy | Modern Slavery Statement

Twitter paid $36 million to avoid patent lawsuit with IBM

Twitter paid $36 million to avoid a patent infringement suit with IBM, according to SEC documents made publicly available on Thursday

twitter-logo.jpg

Last month, the two companies announced they had reached an agreement that settled a 2013 claim by IBM that the microblogging site infringed on three of its patents. But the financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

The cost of the transaction was revealed last week when the SEC published Twitter’s Form 10-K, an annual disclosure of a company’s financial performance. The document also revealed that Twitter now owns 956 patents and has another 100 patent applications pending. Before it filed its IPO in November, Twitter owned just nine patents.

The dispute first became public in October last year, when Twitter revealed in its S-1 filing that IBM had invited it to "to negotiate a business resolution of the allegations.”

In the filing, Twitter wrote: “We believe we have meritorious defenses to IBM's allegations, although there can be no assurance that we will be successful in defending against these allegations or reaching a business resolution that is satisfactory to us.”

The patents at issue were US Patent No 6,957,224, relating to the efficient retrieval of uniform resource locators; No 7,072,849, relating to a method for presenting advertising in an interactive service; and No 7,099,862, relating to programmatic discovery of common contacts.

Under the deal announced in February, Twitter agreed to purchase more than 900 patents from IBM. The two companies also reached a cross-licensing agreement.

more from across site and SHARED ros bottom lb

More from across our site

Kelly Thompson, chair of South African firm Adams & Adams, discusses self-belief, self-doubt, and the importance of saying yes
The renowned food brands were represented by a host of lawyers, including members of the firms’ IP teams
Partners at Bird & Bird and Taylor Wessing discuss how Saudi Arabia offers unique opportunities for firms dealing in IP and tech
Attorneys explain why there are early signs that the US Supreme Court could rule in favour of ISP Cox in a copyright dispute
A swathe of UPC-related hires suggests firms are taking the forum seriously, as questions over the transitional stage begin
A win for Nintendo in China and King & Spalding hiring a prominent patent litigator were also among the top talking points
Rebecca Newman at Addleshaw Goddard, who live-reported on the seminal dispute, unpicks the trials and tribulations of the case and considers its impact
Attorneys predict how Lululemon’s trade dress and design patent suit against Costco could play out
Lawyers at Linklaters analyse some of the key UPC trends so far, and look ahead to life beyond the transition period
David Rodrigues, who previously worked at an IP boutique, said he may become more involved in transactional work at his new firm
Gift this article