Microsoft Scores Big Win in Patent Wars

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The decadence of the modern high-tech industry is on full display today:

Microsoft, which just bought patents from AOL for more than $1 billion, is now selling most of them to Facebook for $550 million. The two companies said Monday that Facebook is buying about 650 of the 925 patents and patent applications. Facebook will get a license to use the rest of the patents. Microsoft will also get a license to use the patents that Facebook is buying.

So there you have it. Each patent is worth about a million bucks, or one one-thousandth of an Instagram. This means that these patents are either ridiculously expensive or else ridiculously cheap. I can’t quite figure out which.