Online marketplace Groupon said it will pay US$57 million to IBM to settle an intellectual property dispute.

Big Blue’s lawsuit had alleged that Groupon used its patented e-commerce technology without authorisation. 

Two of the IBM patents at issue in the case relate to Prodigy, a late-1980s precursor to the Web. The settlement also includes a long-term patent cross-licence agreement between the companies.

An IBM licensing executive testified that Amazon, Facebook, Google, LinkedIn and Twitter have each paid IBM $20-50 million as part of cross-licensing deals that gave them access to the patent portfolio.

In 2017, IBM generated about $1.2 billion in revenue from its licensing activities.