• The Search Agents, Thursday, August 13, 2009 3:15 PM

Ted Ives takes a look at the patent protection set into the agreement between Microsoft and Yahoo, and the possibility of the Redmond, Wash., giant building out a search engine that has portions based on Yahoo-developed technology (hmmmm... interesting). Aside from the numerous patents mentioned in the SEC 8K filing, the agreement requires Microsoft to hire at least 400 Yahoo employees, Ives writes.

Ives points to the 400 people, who probably submitted most of the 234 granted patents and 1116 patent applications. These employees could soon move into new roles at Microsoft, presumably to work on Bing. But later on down the road, Microsoft could find its search engine build on portions of Yahoo technology, with a license, Ives writes. This scenario would give Microsoft an incentive to renew the 10-year agreement for, well, perhaps another 10.

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