ByteDance Ltd.'s sizable intellectual property portfolio would make a forced divestiture of TikTok especially messy, lawyers say, as it would play a significant role in shaping the potential blockbuster deal.
The Chinese company has gained more than 900 US patents since 2020, according to an analysis by Bloomberg Law. They cover technology including an artificial intelligence tool that creates music and ways to recommend videos to users. Buyers usually want to obtain IP rights in this kind of transaction, lawyers said, but ByteDance might not be willing to part with its valuable technology.
Parsing out ByteDance’s thousands of patents ...