They have to pay licensing fees for the IP, according to that article. Its kind of weirdly phrased - don't know how you own code without owning the IP in that code.

You can hold the copyright on the code but still have no rights for the patents used therein.

Actually now that you phrased it that way, it makes total sense. The fact that the source of the code and the IP is the same made it seem bizarre.

Think Skype faced a similar scenario to this a few years back.

When compared to other overpriced sites, yes. But I think the price is quite realistic. It's not like, for example, meebo has a value of $100M.