Hm, this could be a problem. The US Patent and Trademark Office granted AOL a patent in instant messaging.

So maybe AOL will go after MSN and Yahoo! for licensing fees. Bad news, lousy for interoperability (which, granted, has always been far from AOL’s goals), and especially bad for Jabber, who have a site set up to track the issue. (via ex machina)

Update: possible prior art?