Category: Nortel

Nortel Networks has auctioned off its remaining patents and patent applications to a consortium of key technology firms for a money purchase value of US$4.5 billion.

Google, that offered $900 million for the patents in April, wasn’t among the winning bidders.

Nortel said in a very statement late Thursday that a consortium consisting of Apple, EMC, Ericsson, Microsoft, analysis In Motion and Sony had emerged because the winning bidder within the multi-day auction. It failed to offer info on the opposite bidders.

“We believe the consortium is within the best position to utilize the patents in a very manner which will be favorable to the business long term”, Ericsson said. the corporate said it’d contribute $340 million to the transaction that is anticipated to shut within the third quarter. RIM said its portion of the acquisition thought was regarding $770 million.

The sale includes quite half-dozen,000 patents and patent applications spanning wireless, wireless 4G, knowledge networking, optical, voice, Internet, service supplier, semiconductors and different patents, Nortel said.

The sale is subject to applicable Canadian and U.S. court approvals which is able to be sought at a joint hearing expected to be persisted July eleven, it added.

Nortel Networks said in April that it entered in into a “stalking horse” asset sale agreement with Google for the sale of all of its remaining patents and patent applications for a money purchase value of $900 million. The Google bid effectively set the minimum asking value in an auction for the assets.

In May, Nortel said that it obtained approval from the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware and from the Ontario Superior Court of Justice to simply accept the bid from Google.

“This outcome is disappointing for anyone who believes that open innovation edges users and promotes creativity and competition,” said Kent Walker, Google’s senior vice chairman and general counsel in an e-mailed statement. “We can keep operating to scale back the present flood of patent litigation that hurts each innovators and customers.”

In a blog post in April, Walker said Google was bidding for the Nortel patents because it hoped the portfolio would produce a disincentive for others to sue Google, and additionally facilitate the corporate, its partners and also the open supply community, that is integrally concerned in comes like Android and Chrome, still innovate. Having a formidable patent portfolio is one in all a company’s best defenses against an explosion in patent litigation that threatens to stifle innovation, he added.

Nortel filed for cover beneath U.S. Chapter eleven bankruptcy proceedings in January 2009, and has been selling off its assets ever since. Ericsson paid simply over $1 billion for the company’s CDMA (Code Division Multiple Access) wireless division, whereas Avaya paid just below $1 billion for its enterprise networking business.

Google is bidding US$900 million in money for thousands of patents that Nortel can auction off as a part of its bankruptcy proceedings, the businesses said Monday.

The proposed deal is what is referred to as a “stalking horse” asset sale agreement, where the Google provide sets the minimum bar for different bidders for the portfolio of regarding half dozen,000 patents and patent applications, that cowl a broad vary of telecommunications, web search and social networking technologies.

Nortel expects the agreement to receive approval from U.S. and Canadian courts in June, when that the bidding can open for the intellectual property portfolio that “touches nearly each side of telecommunications,” Nortel said during a statement.

The telecommunications technologies lined within the patent portfolio embrace wireless, 4G, knowledge networking, optical, voice, Internet, service supplier and semiconductors, Nortel said.

Meanwhile, Google said that it’s bidding for the Nortel portfolio to defend itself against patent litigation and to spice up its technology innovation, specifically in its Android mobile platform and Chrome OS and browser.

“If successful, we have a tendency to hope this portfolio won’t solely produce a disincentive for others to sue Google, however additionally facilitate us, our partners and therefore the open supply community — that is integrally concerned in comes like Android and Chrome — still innovate,” Kent Walker, senior vp and general counsel, said during a blog post.

Nortel, once one of the largest telecommunications companies in the world, but now in the throes of bankruptcy, has selected Google’s $ 900 million bet on its patent portfolio, as the stalking horse bid. This does not mean that Google will automatically earn massive arsenal of Nortel telecommunications patents, but it does mean that Google is the preferred buyer.

Google, which has a history of lobbying for reform of patent law, has been the subject of many claims of patent litigation. Relative youth of Google patent means it has much less in the vault of heavy hitters like Microsoft, Oracle and IBM, and the purchase of Nortel’s portfolio of 6,000 patents could provide better protection against patent litigation in the future. It is worth noting that both Apple and RIM have been interested in the wallet, too.

Mashable speculates that the patents – which are almost all related to telecommunications – is used to defend against attacks Oracle Android using Java. We estimate that Google is looking just to meet his future in the networking world. In the absence of patent law reform and the continuing threats to net neutrality, patents have a lot of telecommunications seems a very sensible.