Yahoo! Patently Older

Yahoo! (YHOO Quote) plans to apply for about 20 times more U.S. patents next year than it did in 2002, the last sign that the 10-year-old company born in the dot-com bubble is becoming more mature.

"During the first five years of the Internet era, the focus of most of the companies were on getting out there and just building enough visibility. There was no time for almost anything else," said Joe Siino, Yahoo!'s vice president for intellectual property, in an interview. "The company is of a size and a maturity that it can really begin to capture for the long term its innovation more."

Yahoo!, which spends about $500 million annually on research and development, declined to release specific figures on its patent applications, which take about two to five years to gain approval. The company is looking to license its patents but doesn't plan to pursue that as a business, Siino said. ...