Being a fast-growing web company with only a handful of patents has made Twitter a natural target of intellectual property bullying. The microblogging was hit with its first infringement lawsuit in 2009 after the Texas-based TechRadium claimed ownership over the concept of mass notification systems, and in November 2013 received a letter from IBM accusing it of unlawfully using “at least three” patents pertaining to data management and online advertising.

Big Blue holds more software patents than any other company in the world, and has a long history of utilizing its massive portfolio as a battering ram against smaller firms, irrespective of whether or not they are competitors. Twitter was quick to dismiss the tech stalwart’s accusations, noting that “based upon our preliminary review of these patents, we believe we have meritorious defenses to IBM’s allegations. But in the same statement, the company conceded that “there can be no assurance that we will be successful in defending against these allegations or reaching a business resolution that is satisfactory to us.”

This foresight proved true last Friday when the companies revealed in a joint announcement that Twitter bought more than 900 of IBM’s patents and entered a cross-license agreement to settle the dispute. Twitter legal director Ben Lee added that “this acquisition of patents from IBM and licensing agreement provides us with greater intellectual property protection and gives us freedom of action to innovate on behalf of all those who use our service.” Terms of the deal, which was completed in December, were not disclosed.

According to Mashable, the batch includes only one of the patents Twitter was accused of infringing: #6,957,224, which covers a technique for “efficient retrieval of uniform resource locators”, better known as URLs.

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