After months of rumors and speculation that it’s going to auction off its core web business, Yahoo has finally decided to throw in the towel and do just that, and Verizon looks like the most likely buyer at the moment with a $3 billion bid. The company is also auctioning off a portfolio of about 3,000 patents that it’s accumulated over the past two decades, which should fetch another billion dollars or so for Yahoo. The fact that these patents are being sold separately is why Yahoo’s core web business isn’t being sold for as much as analysts expected.
