He doesn’t ordinarily give interviews, so when I got the chance to sit down with him at Fenwick’s headquarters in Mountain View recently, I jumped at it. Not long after we spoke, Fenwick announced that Davidson would be stepping aside at the end of the year and handing the chairmanship over to Richard Dickson.

My first question was to ask Davidson to sum up what he does, as he sees it.

AllThingsD: Gordy, I think I have a pretty good idea what you do all day, but tell me, from your perspective, what is it that you do?

Davidson: I’m a general Silicon Valley lawyer. One day I may be at a Cisco board meeting, as I will be tomorrow. The other may be meeting with two kids out of Stanford with a business plan. Those literally happened on the same day a few years ago, and I said to myself that I find them both equally exhilirating. It’s part of the cycle of Silicon Valley. I worked at a startup company before I was a lawyer, so I’ve been there. I worked for a company that was started in an industrial garage out by the San Jose airport. Everyone was there in the big room, and it was fun. We’ve had a great run. About a year after I joined Fenwick, Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak walked in and started Apple Computer. And everything has flowed from there. The work has involved startup companies, venture capital, intellectual property, technology licensing, IPOs, mergers and acquisitions. It runs the gamut, which is what makes it interesting. We’ve seen five complete business cycles since then.

And given that, where do you think the business cycle is now?

Well, the stock market is about as high as it has ever been, so it’s an up cycle. There’s a lot of activity. As a firm, we set revenue records in each of the last three years. I’m not sure why the stock market is up. It’s a little mysterious. But you can see other indicators of economic activity. You can measure it with traffic on Highway 101, and in job creation in Silicon Valley. Real estate prices are up, and foreclosures are down. I don’t think it’s a bubble, but then I’ll knock on wood when I say that. Nor do I see it as particulary robust. It’s not affecting all industries. But certainly technology is strong right now, with notable exceptions. Some companies are having trouble.

And there have certainly been a lot of IPOs in recent memory. Which ones have you been involved in?

We did Workday and ServiceNow. We did Fusion-io from the underwriting side. We did Vocera and Silver Spring Networks. Those are a few.

Many, if not all of those, if memory serves, took advantage of the JOBS Act when they initially filed to go public. Do you think that’s been helpful to companies?

The companies certainly like it. Companies are vulnerable to competitive sniping when they file, if they don’t get out on the fastest possible schedule. Competitors are ruthless. They point out to customers that the balance sheet may be running down, and start asking why the company in question can’t get out sooner, and sowing doubt by asking them if they really want to take a product from a company running out of money. And so the JOBS Act has largely solved that problem. I don’t think it’s as revolutionary as the authors thought it would be. The only useful provision of it has been the confidential submission rules for when a company first files to go public. Not many companies that we’ve worked with have wanted to take advantage of the provision that allows them to file only two years of financial data as opposed to three. If you want to be taken seriously, why not be audited for the third year? And the companies that are coming public now are companies of substance. They’re not just raising $10 million or $20 million. They’re raising $75 million or $100 million. At that rate, you probably ought to audit three years.

I’ve been talking to some startup companies at various stages, and they tell me that, in a lot of cases, the venture capital firms are coming to them and not the other way around. It’s almost like the VCs are shoving checks down founders’ throats a bit. Is there perhaps too much money in the system?

Well, there’s been a big shakeout in firms versus a few years ago, so there’s less money overall. Venture funds have been cut in half, and the amount of funds raised is coming down. But the hot companies are just getting money thrown at them. There are companies like GitHub, which is a client of mine. There’s a startup company that was under the radar, and they had a number of venture capitalists chasing them, until they finally went with Peter Levine at Andreessen Horowitz. Marc Andreessen once said that there are really only 15 VC deals in Silicon Valley every year that really matter, and I think directionally speaking that’s true. And there is a bipolar distribution among the venture funds. There are probably only 15 that are successful, and the rest just aren’t as successful. It isn’t like 1999, when there was too much money chasing too few deals. Now there’s a lot of money chasing a lot of really good deals.

Do you think there is something different with the way that companies are conceived that makes them better now than before?

Well the Internet has changed everything. The infrastructure has changed everything. It doesn’t take much to start a company; with all the open source software and cloud services out there, you don’t really have to do all that much research and development. The tools are there. You can get to the product you are trying to develop quickly. So the time to market is much shorter. So companies can get up and running fast, and build up their scale fast. Think of Twitter, Facebook, Airbnb, Square, and how fast they’re growing.

As an attorney, your job is to advise companies on pitfalls they may avoid. What’s the classic thing that you tell companies to avoid over and over again? There must be a million of them.

There are a million of them. One thing is to try and rein in their exhuberance. For example, when VC money is being thrown at them, it’s not always about the highest bidder that is the best source of capital. There’s a story I like to tell about Intuit. Scott Cook funded Intuit by kiting his credit cards for a long time, and almost went bankrupt twice. Finally, when it started to get traction, they went for venture capital, not to fund the company, but to pay off their debt. So they got five offers from five funds, and Scott asked me which one to take. He wouldn’t tell who made the higher or lower offers, but there was about a 50 percent difference in the valuation between the lower ones and the higher ones. I immediately connected the dots and told him to accept the lower offers. He couldn’t believe it, and he asked why. I said that the lower bidders brought with them John Doerr of Kleiner Perkins and Burt McMurtry of TVI. I said they would make more difference to the ultimate valuation of Intuit. He later remembered that advice, and acknowledged that it was right.

According to a document filed in U.S. District Court in San Francisco on Tuesday, the microblogging service settled ongoing litigation with TweetAdder, one of five defendants named in a series of lawsuits filed by Twitter in 2012. As a result of the settlement, TweetAdder and its employees agree to knock off a whole bunch of practices that aren’t kosher with Twitter’s terms of service.

In other words, no more spammy behavior from a company that was (allegedly) a veritable arms dealer of Twitter spam weapons to the masses. Past versions of TweetAdder’s products made it super simple for those who wanted to flood the service with spammy tweets to do so. No more, says the agreement, or TweetAdder will face the very expensive music — and repercussions thereof.

“Twitter is committed to aggressively protecting its users from spam, and we use all tools at our disposal to shut down spammers, including through the legal action filed last year,” a Twitter spokesperson told AllThingsD in a statement.

“We are pleased with today’s settlement; we’ve succeeded in getting the TweetAdder defendants to respect our Terms of Service — now and in the future. The stipulated order filed today protects our users and should serve as an example to other parties that try to use the Twitter platform for spam,” Twitter said.

In one sense, it’s a teensy victory. After all, Twitter hasn’t settled with all of the five companies named in the series of original suits.

And Twitter has hardly been the only Web company to combat spammers. Indeed, Facebook has fought “clickjackers,” battled “typosquatters” and engaged in litigation with all sorts of other funnily named opportunistic Web ne’er-do-wells. Craigslist, too, sued a number of spammers in 2009, winning in at least one case an injunction and a $200,000 verdict in favor of the online posting service.

But progress is progress, and it’s one less set of spam-tool providers that are able to push out wares to customers and clog up Twitter’s network. Perhaps other companies Twitter is still fighting will follow suit and change their products to adhere to Twitter’s terms of service.

Or perhaps not. We’ll be watching the court filings to find out. Take a look at the full settlement document below.

Update, 4:17 pm PT: TweetAdder is the second company to settle, as Tweet Buddy founder Justin Clark notified me. His company settled out of court with Twitter last year, and as a result, Tweet Buddy is kaput.

Twitter vs TweetAdder Settlement

If you said “gambling,” then nope. Or not yet, anyway. If you said “betting,” it’s probably just because you read the headline, but yes, good job! And if those two answers sound totally interchangeable to you, read on.

Zynga recently began to test the waters in the U.K., but real-money online gambling (that is, betting on games of chance like slots or bingo) is still outlawed in 47 states, and only operating in one, Nevada. In the U.S., though, players can legally bet cash on “games of skill” in 36 states; the appropriately named startup Skillz is now trying to make something out of that legal distinction on Android.

Gamers are familiar with betting virtual (fake) currency on games, said Skillz CEO Andrew Paradise — think Zynga Poker, which sells virtual poker chips in packs that can cost between 99 cents and $99.99. Skillz’s SDK, which launched in open beta late last month, cuts out the middleman: After a developer’s game has been reviewed and approved by Skillz, the company flips a switch that lets players directly bet on their ability to beat another human in a multiplayer game.

In other words, both players pay an entry fee, a cut of which gets split 50-50 between Skillz and the game developer. Then, one player finishes the game with a profit, and the cycle can restart.

Skillz spokesperson Molly Gerth said engagement and user retention for Skillz-enabled games has increased since the SDK launch, in one case by 110 minutes of additional gameplay per user in the two weeks with Skillz vs. the two weeks prior. Another game saw its total revenue triple in a little over a week, Gerth said.

Paradise made sure to say, though, that Skillz can complement rather than replace existing business models: Players can be served ads regardless of whether they bet with real money or virtual money, which is why those engagement numbers matter. He also proposed that the entry fee for a real-money game could be bundled with power-up items that would otherwise be bought in an in-app store as a sort of cheap sample (that is, rather than a free one).

Most of the people who play Skillz-enabled games currently do so with virtual currency, he said.

Skillz has to review the games that want to fully use its SDK because, in those states that allow betting on them, “games of skill” have to fairly allow players to improve over time with practice. “Skilled” players must be able to beat “unskilled” players in at least three out of every four games, Paradise said.

This is interesting because many popular multiplayer mobile games are already games of skill, or close enough to the legal definition that they could be tweaked to be in the clear. However, for the time being, Skillz’s baby beta is only available on 10 Android games, including one it publishes called 3D Cave Runner.

And why Android? Paradise said it’s because iOS has historically monetized far better than Android, even though the latter has a much larger user base. It’s not a gamble, though; he quickly added that he’s “excited about working with Apple in the future.”

Facebook’s top lawyer Ted Ullyot is leaving the social networking giant, apparently to take some time off.

Facebook disclosed the departure today. Ullyot, 45, will be officially gone in July; the search for his replacement will include internal and external candidates.

As general counsel, Ullyot has presided over a myriad of new, unusual and sometimes controversial legal issues, including managing high-stakes and complex litigation that ranged from Facebook’s battle with the Winklevoss twins, to a patent fight with Yahoo to investor disgruntlement around its initial public offering.

And, of course, over privacy issues. In many ways, given the Silicon Valley company’s pioneering role in social networking, Ullyot has had to work in a relatively undiscovered landscape, which has also attracted a great deal of scrutiny from consumers, regulators and investors.

He started in the fall of 2008, and has managed all the legal aspects of the company and built up the team from 10 when Facebook was a startup to more than 70 as a public company. In that time, Facebook has grown from 500 people to 5,000 and from 100 million to over one billion active users.

It has certainly been a ride for him, from beating back the Winklevii over their allegations related to the founding of Facebook to settling the patent dispute with Yahoo to handling the Federal Trade Commission investigation and more.

It is not clear what he will do next, but sources said he does not have another job lined up as of yet.

A typosquatter is the name for companies or individuals who purchase domain names like “gacebook” or “dacebook” in the hope that users will accidentally visit the sites. In this particular case, the defendants were sitting on many different misspelled domains which, when visited, would redirect users to other, sometimes malicious, sites.

The ruling turned over more than 100 domains to Facebook and awarded the company damages of about $2.8 million.

“We are pleased with the court’s recommendation. We will continue to use all the tools at our disposal to enforce against those who attempt to take advantage of the people who use our service,” Craig Clark, Facebook’s associate general counsel, told AllThingsD in a statement.

Facebook has a history of going after typosquatters, having already won hundreds of domains in the past. This case could be more significant, however, in that it’s among the first to result in the awarding of liability damages to the victor, potentially establishing a precedent for future similar cases.

Here’s the full filing:

Facebook Typo Squatter

It’s a long, complicated history between the two technology companies, but here’s the gist: PeopleBrowsr relies on access to Twitter’s “firehose” of raw data — the millions of tweets flowing through Twitter’s pipes on a moment-by-moment basis — to provide data analysis to PeopleBrowsr’s client base. Twitter decided to terminate the long-standing relationship with PeopleBrowsr last year, and planned to shut off direct access to the company.

To fight that, PeopleBrowsr took Twitter to state court, alleging anticompetitive actions. Twitter argued that this should be a federal court issue and tried to parlay the fight over to a higher court of opinion. If successful, that could have invalidated PeopleBrowsr’s temporary restraining order — which was filed in a California state court — essentially terminating PeopleBrowsr’s access to Twitter’s fire hose.

“Twitter’s inconsistent representations to the State and Federal Courts reinforce our case,” said PeopleBrowsr CEO Jodee Rich in a statement. “Last week, they said this was a contracts issue. This week, it’s an antitrust issue,” said Rich.

So Wednesday’s development essentially means that Twitter’s strategy didn’t work. The case will continue on in San Francisco’s Superior Court.

“We believe this case is without merit and will vigorously defend ourselves against it,” a Twitter spokesperson told AllThingsD.

I’m speaking of that jargon-filled status update that — if your friends are anything like mine — keeps popping up in users’ Facebook news feeds.

It’s a blanket disclaimer which essentially claims copyright on all things posted to Facebook, including items like photos — Facebook users’ stock-in-trade, these days — status updates, and works of art, and demands Facebook can only use that material after being given “written consent” by the user. Here’s a snippet:

In response to the new Facebook guidelines, I hereby declare that my copyright is attached to all of my personal details contained in my personal and business profiles, including, but not limited to: all postings, status updates, comments, illustrations, paintings, drawings, art, photographs, music, videos, etc. as per the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works, (a/k/a the Berne Convention). For commercial use of any of the above, my written consent is required in each instance and at all times.

It’s most likely a response to Facebook’s recently announced changes to dealing with privacy policies on the site. Instead of putting any changes to a massive, billion-user, network-wide vote as is decorum, Facebook seeks to end the policy and start making those decisions in a different way.

There’s a problem here. By virtue of becoming a Facebook user, you’ve already signed over consent to let Facebook republish your work wherever it wants. And that includes alongside the myriad ads flanking the sides of your page.

You know that block of text you skipped reading upon signing up for your Facebook account? There are actually important details embedded therein. Namely that you’ve already granted Facebook a “a non-exclusive, transferable, sub-licensable, royalty-free, worldwide license to use any IP content that you post on or in connection with Facebook (IP License).”

Don’t fret. You still retain copyright on anything you post to Facebook. Just not the right to ban it from the licenses you’ve already agreed to. It didn’t work the last time these status updates were circulating, and it won’t work now.

So do us all a favor and, next time, Snopes that bogus rumor first. I’m tired of seeing the same thing in my feed.

When everyone gets back from this week’s Thanksgiving break, many observers are expecting there to be some progress on the U.S. Federal Trade Commission’s investigation of Google’s alleged anti-competitive activities.

The crucial issue right now is whether the FTC decides to legally challenge Google on “search manipulation” — that is, whether Google manipulates its search rankings to give preference to its own sites, while also pushing down competitors’ rankings.

But, according to people intimately involved in the case, the FTC is hesitating on whether it is willing to go to bat on that particular and critical point, as Google has persuasively argued to some of the FTC commissioners — specifically Tom Rosch — that search is shifting from delivering text links to other Web sites to delivering robust and helpful information on the spot.

For example, when someone searches for an address, instead of providing a list of links to pages on various mapping sites, such as for AOL’s MapQuest, Google surfaces a clickable image of the map itself from its own mapping service.

The company is asserting that this is a better experience for consumers, even if it disadvantages other sites. The center of its argument is that it is doing what’s best for users — and it just so happens that it’s also good for Google properties.

While that might be selfish, it might not be illegal, and it is a difficult legal task for the FTC to prove otherwise, especially since damages to consumers are not clear.

What’s clear is that competitors from a wide range of companies are upset that they don’t get more prominence, but the question centers on whether Google — under antitrust law — might not be compelled to help them.

Said one lawyer close to the situation: “Coca-Cola does not have to carry Pepsi in its gas-station coolers.”

Therefore, the FTC would need solid proof that Google specifically tried to hurt a competitor who had better information in order to push its own properties.

And while there are other issues in play, too — such as advertising data portability, exclusive search agreements on sites and phones and perhaps even issues involving standards essential patents — evidence of abuse of search dominance is at the dead center of the potential battle.

Without it, the FTC might be stymied.

Bloomberg reported the same thing earlier today, saying the FTC is unsure it has enough evidence to prove that Google’s activities harmed consumers. That’s a major change from a series of previous leaks to Washington reporters in recent months that indicated the FTC was proceeding with a strong case.

As one source familiar with the negotiations told me: “There’s a sense the FTC has been outmaneuvered by Google once again.”

After a highly publicized investigation of Google, if the FTC were to drop the search ranking aspect of the case, it could still be taken up by the Department of Justice, which had originally wanted purview over the issue. (Please note: That’s actually what happened a decade ago with the Microsoft antitrust case.)

But to drop the search part of the case would be a massive blink by the FTC that would have implications for further government regulation of technology companies. “They’ll never bring for many years a case against a high-tech company if they don’t bring it here,” said another D.C. insider today.

That doesn’t mean tech companies would all be happy about Google effectively winning. For Google to go unchallenged on antitrust violations could be seen as a green light for the company to pursue whatever form of competition it wants.

Take FairSearch, a coalition of companies including Microsoft, Expedia and TripAdvisor, that is squaring off against Google with a list of demands.

Spokesperson Ben Hammer said via email today: “The members of FairSearch would view any resolution to the antitrust investigations of Google, whether through litigation or a settlement, as incomplete if it does not end Google’s preferencing of its own products ahead of natural search results.”

The FTC had previously given Google a couple of weeks to talk about a settlement before its five commissioners voted on a formal complaint. But sources said Google is trying to call the FTC’s bluff, and it may be working.

Google is in negotiations with the tougher European Commission over antitrust as well, where search manipulation has been at the center of the case, so a timid move by the FTC would also look weak by comparison to the EC — which, in fact, is nothing new.

The background for all this is whether the FTC under Chairman Jon Leibowitz — who is expected to leave soon after serving eight years at the agency — has seemingly been “outmaneuvered” by Google in recent years.

First, the agency let Google’s controversial AdMob acquisition through, with the shaky reasoning that Apple’s purchase of rival Quattro made the mobile search ad market balanced.

Then it dropped its investigation of Google’s Wi-Fi spying. And, most recently, after it got Google to agree to a privacy consent decree over Google Buzz, the company promptly broke it with its Safari cookie workaround — and was fined a piddling $22.5 million (which was just upheld last week).

So, borking this case, which many consider to be the one true shot at restraining Google’s power, would really not look good.

Wong, who announced her new position via Twitter, will serve as legal director for the company.

Wong joins a number of former Googlers on the legal team, including general counsel Alex MacGillivray, and recent new hire associate counsel Amy Keating.

It’s likely Wong was chosen in part for her extensive background on issues of free speech, a topic Twitter’s legal team has continuously and increasingly dealt with in recent years. As detailed in a profile on her from the New York Times Magazine in 2008, Wong and colleagues worked deeply with First Amendment issues at Google’s YouTube unit.

As the article noted at the time, “Google [gave] Nicole Wong a central role in the company’s decision-making process about what controversial user-generated content goes down or stays up on YouTube and other applications owned by Google.”

Also of note: Wong has experience in testifying before congress and being the target of public heat. She played a key role during ongoing litigation issues of censorship between China and Google in 2010, wherein Google no longer agreed to continue censoring search results for Chinese Google users.

General counsel MacGillivray, who leads Twitter’s legal team, is widely respected among privacy advocates in the industry, and hailed as a smart and valuable hire. But Wong’s addition brings polish and experience navigating D.C. to the table, something seen as increasingly valuable as Twitter’s service expands to more than 140 million active users, and the company grows into its global presence.

Twitter’s own struggles with free speech cases are well documented. The company is currently in the midst of litigation with the State of New York over Twitter data from one Malcolm Harris, an Occupy Wall Street protestor charged with disorderly conduct “after allegedly marching on the roadway of the Brooklyn Bridge,” the court documents state.

Twitter also continues to contest outside requests for Twitter data by government agencies, and publishes a continuously updated tally of how many requests the company has received, organized by country.

Wong began her first day at Twitter on Monday.

Yahoo said today in a regulatory filing that it had hired one of Google’s top sales execs, Henrique De Castro, as its COO.

Earlier today, I had reported that CEO Marissa Mayer had been close to nabbing the advertising exec, who has most recently been Google’s president of partners business solutions.

De Castro is getting a pile of money for taking the job, including a $600,000 yearly base salary and an annual bonus that could double that figure. In addition, the Silicon Valley Internet giant will give him $36 million in stock grants, including a one-time retention equity award of $18 million and $18 million in the form of performance-based stock options.

He is also getting $1 million in “make-whole” cash for forgoing compensation from Google and $20 million in stock to replace his shares at the search giant that will vest over four years.

That is a very big check, although Mayer garnered an even bigger one when she joined the company in July.

Yahoo’s regulatory statement on the De Castro hiring is embedded below in its entirety, so you can read about his new riches for yourself (unless Yahoo’s persnickety legal head tries to block it).

Said a Google spokesperson about the departure: “We’re grateful to Henrique for all of his contributions at Google and wish him all the best in his new role at Yahoo!”

Both Mayer and also former Yahoo CEO Scott Thompson have made previous overtures to nab De Castro, who has held a number of high-level jobs for Google across the globe, including at DoubleClick, in display ads and with major partners.

While he had previously rebuffed those efforts, this time De Castro bit.

There were signs he might this past week, after De Castro canceled a major offsite for his employees, and several attendees who know him well said he was not present at the company’s first night of its annual Zeitgeist event for advertising and publishing clients. The suave De Castro is usually a more noticeable fixture at such gatherings.

This is Mayer’s first big hire at Yahoo, having added only lower-level or less well-known execs to her stable of talent since she was appointed.

She touted the hire in a tweet, although the news was long out the door, while also noting on Twitter it was her first full day at the office since having her first baby two weeks ago.

My first full day back in the office, and I’m excited to kick it off by announcing my new COO, Henrique de Castro: businesswire.com/news/home/2012…

— marissamayer (@marissamayer) October 15, 2012

The hiring does create a potential issue in the sales arena, especially with current head of revenue Michael Barrett. De Castro and Barrett worked together at Google and multiple sources said the pair did not get along there.

It might not matter. While Barrett has publicly said he planned to stay at Yahoo under Mayer — he was hired by interim CEO Ross Levinson this summer before she arrived — many sources said he does not want to be at the company for the long term.

De Castro has a lot of work to do for the big payout he is getting and it will be a big challenge for him to turn around the troubled organization.

Along with declining growth, search market share, engagement and more, Yahoo also has had a management turnover issue of epic proportions.

De Castro will presumably be in charge of making it all better at Yahoo when he arrives sometime before the beginning of the year and is likely to focus on operations while Mayer zeroes in on products.

One area of trouble: While she has lavished attention on cultural issues and on the company’s tech troops, sources said most of the advertising and media leadership at Yahoo have had little interaction with Mayer since she arrived this summer.

Advertising, of course, is Yahoo’s biggest money maker.

The Portugal-born De Castro has a lot of experience here and is decidedly more of a charmer than Mayer.

More importantly, he is a very high-profile hire, as well as a colorful one. He speaks a menu of languages, dresses with a lot of style and is a worldwide traveler. I know him a little bit and find him to be smooth and confident, even if a little cagey.

Before Google, De Castro worked at Dell and also McKinsey.

All this makes him a perfect choice for Mayer, who is also a former Googler, since she has been considering purchasing a range of companies in the advertising tech space. The most likely candidate of late is PubMatic, which has been in early talks with Yahoo about being acquired.

The Silicon Valley start-up would be a solid add to Yahoo’s ad platform offerings, especially if it wants to stay competitive with Google. PubMatic helps publishers effectively manage their display ad inventory, and competes with Google’s AdMeld.

(Ironically, Barrett ran that start-up, which he sold to Google for $400 million about a year ago.)

Here is the De Castro hiring document from Yahoo:

YHOO-20121015-8K-20121015

And here is the official press release from Yahoo:

Henrique de Castro Named Chief Operating Officer of Yahoo!

October 15, 2012

SUNNYVALE, Calif. – Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ: YHOO) announced today that Henrique de Castro has been hired as chief operating officer (COO). Reporting directly to Yahoo! CEO Marissa Mayer, de Castro will be responsible for strategic and operational management of Yahoo!’s sales, operations, media and business development worldwide.

“Henrique is an incredibly accomplished and rigorous business leader, and I’m personally excited to have him join Yahoo!’s strong leadership team,” said Marissa Mayer, CEO of Yahoo!. “His operational experience in Internet advertising and his proven success in structuring and scaling global organizations make him the perfect fit for Yahoo! as we propel the business to its next phase of growth.”

“The combination of Yahoo!’s unique properties with high quality content, its renewed focus on outstanding user experience and its massive reach bring tremendous value to users, advertisers and partners,” said de Castro. “This is a pivotal point in Yahoo!’s history, and I believe strongly in the opportunity ahead. I can’t wait to join Marissa and the team and get started.”

De Castro brings more than 20 years experience leading operations, strategy, partner management and revenue generation for some of the world’s leading brands. Most recently, he was vice president of Google’s worldwide Partner Business Solutions group, where he was responsible for advertising platforms and services for Google’s publisher and commerce partners. Prior to that, he led Google’s media, mobile and platforms organization, where he helped to grow the business significantly. Prior to Google, de Castro spent two years at Dell Corporation, where he managed sales and business development operations across Western Europe. He has consulted for McKinsey & Company, where he advised numerous clients across many different industries. His career also includes senior positions in private equity and advertising businesses.

De Castro will join the company on or before January 22, 2013, or as soon as he has satisfied his obligations to his current employer.

That’s because Aereo doesn’t pay broadcast networks for their programming, and the cable guys do. But if Aereo doesn’t, then perhaps the cable guys can get off the hook, too.

That, however, could take an awfully long time to play out. In the meantime, here’s a pay-TV company weighing in on the side of the status quo — Cablevision has filed a friend-of-the-court brief that sides with the broadcasters in their fight with Aereo.

In addition to the pay TV/free TV dynamic referenced above, there’s one other reason this one is worth skimming: Aereo’s entire structure is based on a legal victory Cablevision won back in 2009 to operate a cloud-based DVR.

Big tech players like Google and Amazon have used the same ruling to create cloud-based music lockers without licenses from labels. And Aereo is basically making the same argument with its Rube Goldbergesque array of teeny-tiny TV antennas.

Short version:  Cablevision’s lawyers take great pains to argue that their setup is nothing like Aereo’s. The longer version, below, runs 24 pages.

Amicus brief 12-2807 _as filed 9.21.12_

Zynga filed a pair of motions to rebut Electronic Arts’ claims in the original filing, arguing that The Ville on Facebook is not a carbon copy of EA’s The Sims Social. And in a third filing, it countersued, alleging that EA participated in unlawful actions, including anti-competitive business practices, when it came to recruiting employees.

“Today we responded to EA’s claims, which we believe have no merit,” said Reggie Davis, Zynga’s general counsel, in a statement. “We also filed a counterclaim which addresses actions by EA we believe to be anticompetitive and unlawful business practices, including legal threats and demands for no-hire agreements.”

The three documents, embedded below, provide a behind-the-scenes look at the companies’ intense competition.

Despite EA’s dominance in the industry, Zynga has easily remained the top social games company on Facebook and has recruited away many of EA’s top managers. At the same time, EA has spent billions of dollars trying to gain traction in the social space — with mixed results.

In the original suit, filed by EA in U.S. District Court in San Francisco in August, EA charged that Zynga’s The Ville is an “unmistakable copy” of EA’s The Sims Social. “When The Ville was introduced in June 2012, the infringement of The Sims Social was unmistakable to those of us at Maxis as well as to players and the industry at large,” said Lucy Bradshaw, general manager of EA’s Maxis label.

In Zynga’s response, it asks the court to strike several references in the lawsuit that it believes are not pertinent. Zynga also denies EA’s allegations, claiming that both The Ville and EA’s The Sims Social belong to “a longstanding and well-developed genre known as ‘life simulation’ games,” and “no one, including EA, may lay claim to the exclusive right to develop and release games in that genre.”

The counterclaim gets more juicy.

Zynga says that EA knows that none of the former EA executives named in its lawsuit transmitted any confidential information to Zynga “because EA itself was involved in, and approved of, the exhaustive measures undertaken to ensure that did not happen.” What’s more, Zynga claims that EA tried to restrict its employees from going to work at a competitor, which is against California law.

In the filing, Zynga writes: “Zynga was told by EA’s legal team that Mr. Riccitiello had instructed them to obtain a no-hire agreement from Zynga that prohibited Zynga’s future hiring of EA employees. Absent such agreement, Mr. Riccitiello would direct a lawsuit to be filed against Zynga ‘knowing there was no basis and even though he loses.’”

The lawsuit goes on to claim that Riccitiello made other similar statements.

EA spokesman John Reseburg responded quickly to the allegations in a written statement that mocked the tone of the lawsuit: “This is a predictable subterfuge aimed at diverting attention from Zynga’s persistent plagiarism of other artists and studios. Zynga would be better served trying to hold onto the shrinking number of employees they’ve got, rather than suing to acquire more.”

Here are the filings:

Part 1 Zynga’s Motion to Strike

Part 2 Zynga’s Answer and Demand for Jury Trial

Part 3 Counterclaim _Public_

When the stock market opens later today, one interesting indication of the impact of the Apple victory over Samsung in its patent infringement battle will be investor reaction.

A jury in California rendered the verdict in the contentious case — in which more than $1 billion was awarded Apple — after the markets had closed on Friday.

In after-hours trading starting later that day, Apple’s shares rose smartly. The stock is now up almost 2.4 percent, or $15.67, to $678.89. Apple closed Friday afternoon at $663.22, already an all-time high.

On the flip side, today in Asian markets, Samsung’s stock plunged 7 percent.

And even though the South Korean consumer electronics giant has vowed to appeal the decision, this morning will bring the clearest indication of what the financial markets think of the development.

Will Apple soar — especially given that the Silicon Valley icon is expected in the weeks ahead to also be releasing new versions of its hugely popular iPhone and iPad devices?

And whither the shares of Google — a major Samsung mobile partner, whose Android operating system software is at the heart of many of the contested smartphones and tablets?

The big question, of course, is whether Google is seen by Wall Street as a Samsung proxy, with the potential of being a future target of Apple’s lawyers or, perhaps more simply, collateral damage in the fight.

Not surprisingly, the search giant sought to distance itself from the legal melee by finally releasing an ain’t-nobody-here-but-us-chickens statement on the situation last night.

In case you’re keeping track anyway, Google shares closed Friday at $678.63 — ironically, at almost the exact same price as Apple’s.

Please see this disclosure related to me and Google.

Apple versus Samsung Full Coverage

The verdict from the San Jose, Calif., federal jury came early Saturday morning South Korea time, a day after a Seoul court, ruling on the same case, came out with a judgment that gave Samsung its biggest victory since the two companies began their global legal battle 16 months ago.

Read the rest of this post on the original site »

After Apple’s legal victory over Samsung in the much-disputed patent infringement battle earlier today, its CEO Tim Cook sent a memo to the tech giant’s employees.

Cook, who took over at the company exactly a year ago, said Apple had gone to court “very reluctantly and only after repeatedly asking Samsung to stop copying our work.”

He stressed that the lawsuit “has always been about something much more important than patents or money. It’s about values.”

The memo was similar, though perhaps more emotional, than a company statement earlier today.

Apple said, in part,

“The lawsuits between Apple and Samsung were about much more than patents or money. They were about values. At Apple, we value originality and innovation and pour our lives into making the best products on earth. We make these products to delight our customers, not for our competitors to flagrantly copy.”

Here is the full Cook memo, which was obtained by 9to5Mac:

Today was an important day for Apple and for innovators everywhere.

Many of you have been closely following the trial against Samsung in San Jose for the past few weeks. We chose legal action very reluctantly and only after repeatedly asking Samsung to stop copying our work. For us this lawsuit has always been about something much more important than patents or money. It’s about values. We value originality and innovation and pour our lives into making the best products on earth. And we do this to delight our customers, not for competitors to flagrantly copy.

We owe a debt of gratitude to the jury who invested their time in listening to our story. We were thrilled to finally have the opportunity to tell it. The mountain of evidence presented during the trial showed that Samsung’s copying went far deeper than we knew.

The jury has now spoken. We applaud them for finding Samsung’s behavior willful and for sending a loud and clear message that stealing isn’t right.

I am very proud of the work that each of you do.

Today, values have won and I hope the whole world listens.

Tim

Apple versus Samsung Full Coverage

Apple’s already soaring stock got yet another boost in after-hours trading today, after it largely won a bruising patent infringement battle with Samsung.

Shares of the tech giant, which have risen 76 percent in the last year, are now up almost 1.8 percent, or $11.73, to $674.95. Apple’s stock closed Friday afternoon at $663.22.

This comes on the heels of Apple becoming the most valuable public company of all time this week, after surpassing a market capitalization beyond $600 billion last week.

Now it is even higher, thanks to the jury verdict and — perhaps even more significantly for investors in the weeks ahead — as new versions of the popular iPhone and iPad are about to be launched this fall.

Today, with those iPhones and iPads a key part of the legal battle, the trial effect hit.

After the markets closed, jurors ruled that many of the Samsung smartphones and tablets infringed on various design and utility patents held by Apple on its popular iPhone and iPad devices. It also found some Samsung phones had violated Apple’s protected “trade dress” for the iPhone.

There will obviously be an appeal — Samsung said as much clearly in its cheeky statement about the loss:

“It is unfortunate that patent law can be manipulated to give one company a monopoly over rectangles with rounded corners, or technology that is being improved every day by Samsung and other companies,” the South Korean consumer electronics giant said. “This is not the final word in this case or in battles being waged in courts and tribunals around the world, some of which have already rejected many of Apple’s claims.”

But, for today at least, Wall Street likes the Apple legal victory.

Check it out for yourself:

Apple versus Samsung Full Coverage

If anyone had any question what irony is exactly, consider this: Today is the one-year anniversary of the day Steve Jobs stepped down from his job as the charismatic and legendary leader of Apple, as well as the very moment that the company he co-founded has largely won an epic legal battle with Samsung over patent infringement.

The late Apple co-founder was particularly vocal at various times on the issue of copying innovations that he felt his company had pioneered.

That’s been especially true related to Google Android operating system that Samsung and many other device makers are using.

In a quote by Jobs from Walter Isaacson’s biography of him, he famously said:

“I will spend my last dying breath if I need to, and I will spend every penny of Apple’s $40 billion in the bank, to right this wrong. I’m going to destroy Android, because it’s a stolen product. I’m willing to go thermonuclear war on this.”

And that has certainly been at the center of the landmark trial over who stole what in the aggressive race to dominate the market for popular smartphones and tablet devices, including Apple’s iPhone and iPad.

Right now, the verdict from a California jury — who deliberated for less than 24 hours — is being read in a San Jose courtroom.

And, so far, it is largely favoring the Silicon Valley-based Apple over the South Korean consumer electronics giant on the wide-ranging patent infringement case.

As The Verge’s liveblog of the verdict noted: “Apple didn’t win everything — not by a long shot — but it won enough to make this a very important day.”

Indeed.

Those wins include patents related to touchscreen features, such as zooming, as well as on designs.

In addition, so far, Samsung has been ordered to pay Apple $1.05 billion in damages.

The jurors determined that Samsung violated six of seven patents and found that it willfully infringed in five instances. Also: The jury said that all seven of Apple’s patents were valid, which Samsung had contested.

The findings in the complex case are still being read in court, because it involves many patent infringement allegations on both sides related to dozens of devices.

Legions of lawyers for Apple and Samsung went back and forth on who invented what and whether it was a matter of copying or simple inspiration.

Samsung, naturally, said the various devices might be similar, but not the same. Apple begged to differ.

Jobs would have been in agreement, too, had he lived to see the verdict — he died of pancreatic cancer in October of last year, only months after stepping down.

But, in his resignation letter a year ago, he wrote about the importance of innovation:

“I believe Apple’s brightest and most innovative days are ahead of it. And I look forward to watching and contributing to its success in a new role. I have made some of the best friends of my life at Apple, and I thank you all for the many years of being able to work alongside you.”

Apple versus Samsung Full Coverage

Yahoo just filed a regulatory document noting that it might not give back the bulk of the $4 billion-plus that it is expecting to get from its sale of a chunk of its Alibaba stake to shareholders, as it had previously said it would, either via a stock buyback or dividend.

Instead, CEO Marissa Mayer looks like she wants all that dough to buy some tasty companies.

The filing noted that Mayer’s recent look-see review of Yahoo, “may lead to a reevaluation of, or changes to, our current plans, including our restructuring plan, our share repurchase program, and our previously announced plans for returning to shareholders substantially all of the after tax cash proceeds of the initial share repurchase.”

Yahoo’s stock is down about five percent on the news, in after-hours trading, to $15.28. It had been moving up slowly in recent weeks.

That’s because, for investors, this is a drastic reversal of previous Yahoo statements on what it was going to do with the windfall. At the time of the deal and then later in several statements by its top execs, Yahoo said it would return the most of the money to shareholders.

“We look forward to delivering the proceeds of the near-term transaction to our shareholders,” said CFO Tim Morse at the time of the deal’s announcement in May, which he later reiterated on an earnings call.

Related to the deal, the Yahoo board had also recently authorized its execs to conduct a larger stock buyback, although the company was under no legal obligation to do so.

In addition, in a recent letter to his investors, Third Point’s Dan Loeb — now a Yahoo director and in charge of a six percent stake — said the company “has indicated that it will return substantially all of the expected $5B of cash it will receive from this transaction to shareholders.”

No longer — at least for most of the incoming pile of moolah from China.

Still, the move probably should come as no surprise, given Mayer is already on the prowl for innovative companies to buy and talent to “acqhire.”

She’ll certainly need a bigger war chest, since Yahoo only has just above $2 billion in cash now, not all of which is available (long accounting reason I will go into later).

The big slug of Alibaba money, from selling half of Yahoo’s stake in the Chinese company, will obviously give her more heft.

So, too, would any money she might get from a deal around Yahoo’s Japanese assets. The company has been in protracted talks with SoftBank, its partner there, about such a sale. While sources said it was close to completion, there appears to still be some roadblocks to its final settlement.

Depending on how such a transaction is completed — tax-free or not — Yahoo could get about $3 billion in cash and perhaps another asset worth $1.5 billion.

That would certainly give Mayer a bigger kitty to do acquisitions — and presumably make lots of friends in Silicon Valley in the process.

Here is the pertinent section of the filing:

New Chief Executive Officer and Review of Business Strategy

On July 17, 2012, Marissa Mayer became the Chief Executive Officer and a member of the Board of Directors of Yahoo! Inc. (the “Company”). As reported in our Form 10-Q for the quarter ended June 30, 2012 filed today with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Ms. Mayer is engaging in a review of the Company’s business strategy to enhance long term shareholder value. As part of that review, Ms. Mayer intends to review with the Board of Directors, among other things, the Company’s growth and acquisition strategy, the restructuring plan we began implementing in the second quarter of 2012, and the Company’s cash position and planned capital allocation strategy. This review process may lead to a reevaluation of, or changes to, our current plans, including our restructuring plan, our share repurchase program, and our previously announced plans for returning to shareholders substantially all of the after tax cash proceeds of the initial share repurchase under the Share Repurchase and Preference Share Sale Agreement we entered into on May 20, 2012 with Alibaba Group Holding Limited.

And here is the whole filing:

YHOO-20120809-8K-20120809

At times, the lawyers in the case are playing to the judge, while at other times they are trying to score points with the press and the so-called “court of public opinion.” And, since the attorneys arguing the case are from outside law firms, sometimes they have to do things just to look good for their clients — Apple and Samsung.

Beyond that, both sides are also preparing for another audience — the appeals court. Whichever side loses, and perhaps both companies, will inevitably appeal to a higher court. Indeed, among the many lawyers in court, each side likely has at least one whose sole job it is to take notes about goings-on that could lay the groundwork for appeal, something known in legal speak as “reversible error.”

Samsung has been the most upset by Judge Lucy Koh’s rulings, arguing that the jury is not getting to hear key evidence both that Apple was influenced by Sony and that Samsung had its own large-screen touch devices in the works before the iPhone debuted.

Lawyers for Samsung have objected, made motions for reconsideration and, at one point, literally begged the court to change its mind.

While most appeals are handled once the case is wrapped up, certain kinds of appeals can be taken up even while the jury is still hearing arguments. If one side feels it has been deeply and clearly wronged, it can make an emergency appeal to a higher court. As disappointed as it has been with some of the decisions in the case, even Samsung hasn’t taken that step. Of course, the trial is only two days in.

Samsung’s lawyers have also been laying the groundwork for the inevitable post-trial appeal, should it lose its jury case. That fact has not gone unnoticed by anyone in court, particularly Judge Koh.

During Monday’s arguments, Koh interrupted attorney John Quinn as he was begging the court to allow evidence of touchscreen phones Samsung was developing prior to the iPhone.

“You’ve made your record for appeal,” Koh told the Samsung attorney, noting the court had already considered and reconsidered Samsung’s request. “Don’t make me sanction you, please.”

There’s a fine line for Samsung.

While it wants to create the impression that it was aggrieved at trial should it lose, it still would like to prevail in the case. And, displeased as it may be with some of Koh’s rulings, this case is slated to go on for a couple more weeks, so the lawyers also don’t want to completely alienate the judge, who will no doubt be called on to make many, many more rulings on what is and isn’t allowed to be heard by the jury.

Apple, too, might benefit from losing at least a couple significant procedural battles to help its appeals case, should the jury find for Samsung in all or part of the case.

While it is Apple that filed the initial suit in the case, Samsung is also countersuing Apple for patent infringement, alleging that the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch infringe on its patents.

The case resumes on Friday at 9 am PT, with Apple Senior VP Phil Schiller set to retake the witness stand, after testifying for only a few minutes before the court ended for the day on Tuesday. Schiller is slated to be followed by Scott Forstall, the head of iOS, the operating system that powers the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch.

AllThingsD will be in court, to make sure you get the latest.

Apple versus Samsung Full Coverage

After former interim CEO Ross Levinsohn departed Yahoo earlier this week, I noted that it was only a matter of time before more execs headed out the door with the changeover to new leader and former Googler Marissa Mayer.

So it is written, so it shall be done, it seems, with two significant departures from the company this week — with one tech exec going to Apple and another product exec headed to an interesting new online education initiative.

According to several sources, Adam Bechtel — who has been the VP of infrastructure at Yahoo — will be leaving for an unspecified job at Apple.

At Yahoo, Bechtel was essentially the No. 2 exec under tech, platform and ops head David Dibble, and had purview over its data centers, network, systems, storage and edge technologies. He joined Yahoo almost a decade ago, via its acquisition of Inktomi.

Also out the Yahoo door is Jonathan Katzman, a product ace who was part of the social efforts across Yahoo, led by Mike Kerns. He was on the Kerns team that drove its most notably successful product in a while, Social Bar, which has become one of the most popular apps for sharing on Facebook.

Katzman came to Yahoo after its acquired Xoopit — an email-focused sharing product — in 2009. He’s headed to be chief product officer at the Minerva Project, which is attempting to build the next top-tier university online.

There have been many other departures of less-well-known execs at Yahoo, several sources said, mostly due to fatigue over the number of management changes at the company. Most recently, that includes sales exec Marc Grabowski, who left without other plans.

“It’s not Mayer’s fault, but some of us are just done,” said one person who is leaving. “A lot of us just can’t take another restructuring.”

That said, a large number of others who had been contemplating leaving Yahoo are now in a wait-and-see mode regarding what their new CEO will do and who she will pick to help her turn it around.

Among current top execs, that has prompted who-will-stay-and-who-will-go guessing games internally, with Mayer grilling staff up and down the organization to get a better lay of the rocky land.

Perhaps the most insecure in their status are the top employees on the media and sales side of Yahoo, who were aligned with Levinsohn and his vision of the company as a content-centric business. Those to watch include strategy exec Jim Heckman, sales head Michael Barrett, and media head Mickie Rosen, among others.

Also, intriguingly still in the mix: Former Americas ad sales head Rich Riley, who is apparently still with the company, despite a June declaration to move on after some months. (Things change fast at Yahoo!)

On the tech and product side, it will be interesting to see if Mayer will promote from within its ranks — such as elevating Shashi Seth, SVP of Yahoo’s connections business. Other execs who could move in this arena are Dibble, and also Mark Morrissey, who now works for Dibble as head of engineering operations.

Of course, there are the other parts of Yahoo that Mayer also now has responsibility for, such as legal, marketing, finance and HR. The execs to monitor there include CFO Tim Morse, HR head David Windley, and marketing chief Mollie Spilman.

Longtime Yahoo legal head Mike Callahan left the company before Mayer’s arrival, so that job has been given to Ron Bell — Hi there, Ron, be nice! — on an interim basis. But look for movement there too.

Much speculation is also centering on what tech stars Mayer might bring in from Google or from elsewhere, including via acquisition.

She’ll need a lot of firepower, of course, to turn the company around, and has told various execs that she expects to make a lot of talent hires to get Yahoo back to producing at more innovative levels.

As I reported earlier today, she has got one already — former Google PR exec Anne Espiritu is now moving over to corporate communications at Yahoo. At the same time, Mayer abruptly let Yahoo’s most recent PR spokeswoman, Dana Lengeek, go.

Expect Mayer to continue to pull from Google, which is chock-full of talent and where she had a coterie of favorites, some of whom are there and some of whom have moved on. Those mentioned as possible hires still at Google include shopping exec Samir Samat and social-networking-famous (and fantastic) Orkut Büyükkökten.

But many of Mayer’s close colleagues have left Google already and are ensconced in important jobs, including: Dylan Casey, who is now director of product management at Path; PR exec Gabe Stricker, who runs communications for Twitter; Craig Silverstein, now at the Khan Academy; and Ben Ling, who is currently COO of the Badoo “meeting network.”

Mayer also reportedly holds former Googler, FriendFeeder and Facebooker Bret Taylor in very high regard. But the entrepreneur — exactly the kind of tech powerhouse she needs to bring into Yahoo and soon — is now in the midst of creating a new start-up.

When I pinged Taylor today about whether he’d consider taking up a challenge such as Yahoo, he texted back:

“No, definitely still starting my own company, despite the fact that I am a big fan of Marissa.”

It’s a nice compliment, and Mayer’s got a lot of people rooting for her, of course — the real trick will be to turn some of the strongest ones into Yahoos.

You can see the new grid at the bottom of the post. By far the most important things here are the free hour-a-day option, and the one-dollar, one-day pass. Both are obviously great ways to get consumers to sample the new service, and the free option doesn’t require a credit card account to sign up, which removes a big hurdle.

But the dollar option could also end up being the way that lots of people use the service, especially while its programming choices remain constrained to the broadcast TV channels. It may not be worth $8 or $12 a month to you to be able to watch CBS on your laptop or iPad. But there could be lots of one-off events that make it well worth a buck to get those channels on the go: Think Oscars, or election coverage, or football Sundays this fall.

The bigger picture is that Aereo has the ability to do any kind of pricing scheme it wants, because it’s not constrained by any licensing agreements, and doesn’t share any revenue with anyone. Spotify or Hulu or anyone else would love to do this kind of thing, but they can’t without arduous/impossible negotiations with copyright owners/investors.

At some point, some of that footloose feeling will go away — if Aereo builds out its bundle by adding, say, the likes of Netflix, it will have to figure out a different version of the pricing grid. But, for now, it’s a big advantage, as the company looks to expand outside of a few thousand early adopters in New York City.

[Click image to enlarge]

*To be clear: Diller doesn’t own Aereo; his IAC is an investor.

Much to the relief of many (and perhaps the consternation of a few intellectual property lawyers), Yahoo and Facebook officially settled their ugly patent lawsuit earlier today and also expanded their longtime partnership.

After the Silicon Valley companies — one an iconic Internet portal and the other the powerful social networking giant — agreed to formally cross-license large parts of their patent portfolio, not to sue each other over other similar intellectual property and work together on big advertising offering, Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg and Yahoo’s interim CEO Ross Levinsohn got on the phone with me for an exclusive joint interview.

Sandberg began by noting that Facebook was not keen on battling its longtime partner, despite tough talk in its countersuit against Yahoo’s initial lawsuit.

“It’s important for us to have strong partners using our technology to make their experiences social,” she said. “[This patent battle] has been a weird anomaly in relationship of these two companies.”

Levinsohn said that is why he immediately moved to settle with Facebook as soon as he got the job to lead Yahoo temporarily in May. He replaced ousted CEO Scott Thompson, who had aggressively pushed for the initial patent infringement lawsuit against Facebook.

“It’s important for us as a company to fully embrace social and fixing the damaged relationship with Facebook was at the top of my list when I was asked to take this role,” he said. “It’s good for consumers that Yahoo and Facebook work together.”

He pointed to the pre-lawsuit success of Yahoo’s Social Bar feature, which connects its audience with Facebook friends and which has attracted 90 million users. “It was a taste of how well our two companies could work together,” he said.

Sandberg, who acknowledged that Facebook was both surprised and deeply angered by the Yahoo lawsuit, said that the kinds of situation that arise out of patent fight are bad for Silicon Valley overall.

“There is different means to play out competition and companies playing that out over patents is not it,” she said. “Yahoo and Facebook had a very good relationship and what happened was not in keeping with that relationship.”

Levinsohn noted that Yahoo needed a social element in its massive content offerings that it had unsuccessfully tried to inject itself before turning to Facebook several years ago.

Now, he noted, the “white board can be filled” again with new cross-company ideas.

While the pair would not go into many details about the patent arrangements, they said there will be no patent lawsuits in the future. The deal encompasses licensing of a little more than half of Yahoo’s rich portfolio of digital patents and an agreement not to sue on the remaining ones, which Facebook could license or even buy in the future.

“It’s really a good step in the right direction of the company,” said Levinsohn, who gave credit to Yahoo’s board for pulling back from the patent litigation and making nice with Facebook legally. “We are also grateful that Facebook dug in on this.”

Added Sandberg, pointing out the obvious need for both parties — who have bigger and more difficult fish to fry: “From our point of view, we need cooperation around Silicon Valley — we’d rather spend time on partnerships than on legal fighting.”