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As it scrambles to avoid defeat in its battle with Microsoft, Yahoo may try to put a little more time on the clock.

Microsoft, whose offer for Yahoo is now worth $41.2 billion, was preparing to escalate its takeover fight by starting a proxy contest next week. But in an effort to delay that move, Yahoo is considering several options, including a plan to postpone its annual meeting, people close to the company said on Tuesday.

The maneuver comes as Yahoo has stepped up merger and joint venture talks with AOL, a unit of Time Warner, these people said.

Microsoft had been preparing to nominate a slate of directors to the board of Yahoo by next Thursday, the deadline for mounting a proxy contest. If Yahoo moves back that deadline back or postpones its meeting, something it could announce as early as this week, the company could buy time to seek out and evaluating alternatives.
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What investors want to know about Microsoft and Yahoo these days is this: Are they, or aren’t they? Talking to each other about Microsoft’s $40 billion-plus takeover offer, that is.

Don’t expect enlightenment from the chatty executive ranks at Microsoft, who have made public statements galore even though, sadly for newshounds, their accounts of talks (or nontalks) appear to conflict.

CEO Steve Ballmer, a man who should know, said of the deal at a German technology conference, “There’s been a range of dialogue and there’s a range of alternatives being considered.” Then, after that shocker, he demurred, “I think it’s best for me not to get into the detail.”

Last Friday, Jean-Philippe Courtois, who heads the company’s international operations, said to an Agence France Press reporter that Microsoft and Yahoo are having “a very close dialogue.”
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EBay has settled a seven-year patent dispute with MercExchange, a legal fight that prompted the Supreme Court to issue an important ruling on intellectual property.

EBay said Thursday that it had bought the three MercExchange patents it had been accused of violating. The price was not disclosed, but eBay said the figure would not materially affect its financial results.

MercExchange, based in Great Falls, Va., sued eBay in 2001, arguing that eBay’s “Buy It Now” option, which lets eBay sellers make items available at set prices instead of auctions, infringed MercExchange patents. MercExchange’s founder, a patent lawyer, Thomas Woolston, patented technologies related to an electronic network of consignment stores.
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