Apple and friends buy Nortel patents for $4.5 billion
Here’s something you don’t see every day. A diverse array of companies, often bitter competitors, joining forces to bid on that most contentious of all commodities, patents. Apple and Microsoft are part of this coalition of the willing, as are EMC, Sony, Ericsson and RIM.
Back in the noughties, Nortel’s executives behaved very badly indeed with many returning their ill gotten gains and a couple even winding up behind bars. The Canadian government threw some good money after the bad, but still the company went down, filing for bankruptcy protection in the US and elsewhere in 2009.
Now, the fighting over the spoils has come to an end. Reuters reports that an unlikely consortium including Apple, Research in Motion, Microsoft, EMC, Ericsson and Sony have agreed to pay $4.5 billion for Nortel’s patent portfolio. Google and Intel both came out of the bidding war empty handed.
“The size and dollar value for this transaction is unprecedented, as was the significant interest in the portfolio among major companies around the world,” said George Riedel, chief strategy officer and president of business units at rump Nortel.
At stake were more than 6,000 patents and patent applications spanning wireless, wireless 4G, data networking, optical, voice, Internet, semiconductors and other patents. Of these, the most sought after were the ones relating to the emerging long term evolution (LTE) 4G standard.
Does this news now herald the beginning of a new détente in the oft litigious mobile space? Perhaps for companies behind the winning bid only…
What’s your take?
via 9 to 5 Mac
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