Yahoo won't be getting much money, but it will be able to put the whole thing behind it

Jun 4, 2012 08:54 GMT  ·  By

Surprisingly or not, it seems that Facebook and Yahoo are working things out. Now that the short-lived reign of former CEO Scott Thompson is done, Yahoo is back to its senses and is talking to Facebook about putting this embarrassing phase behind it.

The two sides are discussing the details of a settlement, but it seems that they'll end up with a working deal. That may still be a few weeks off and there's no guarantee that they'll get to an agreement.

Still, the deal will involve cross-licensing of their patents and may even include some better integration of Facebook features in Yahoo and the other way around.

But what it won't include is a big payout to Yahoo, which is what the company was really after in the first place. But Facebook made it clear from the beginning that it wasn't going to pay.

It spent some considerable amounts of money to get some AOL patents from Microsoft and would have spent a lot more before it ever sent a dime to Yahoo.

The "message" was and still is that you can't intimidate Facebook. Any patent troll considering suing Facebook in the hope of scaring it into a settlement is going to think twice. The social network is prepared to spend a lot of money fighting anyone that has the gall to sue it. And it's got plenty of money to spend.

Yahoo realized this early on so it was probably looking for a way out even before Thompson was booted. But the CEO's dismissal gave it the perfect scapegoat. While the lawsuit idea may have been proposed and backed by the former CEO, it was hardly something he did alone and that no one else agreed to.

After it became clear that Facebook won't back down, Yahoo had to save face and cut short the lawsuit and any expenses associated with it.