Apple, Microsoft-led consortium wins Nortel patents

A consortium led by Apple and Microsoft won an auction for some 6,000 patents held by bankrupt Canadian firm Nortel, their $4.5 billion bid beating Google and Intel, Nortel announced on Friday. The consortium consisting of Apple, EMC, Ericsson, Microsoft, Research in Motion and Sony agreed to pay cash for the portfolio of patents ranging from wireless technology to semiconductors, Nortel said in a statement. The agreement is still subject to US and Canadian court approval, which will be sought at a joint hearing scheduled for July 11, Nortel said. The $4.5 billion price tag was three times larger than what analysts had initially expected Nortel's patents would sell for, demonstrating the lengths to which tech companies will go to avoid patent-infringement lawsuits. The news marked a defeat for Google, which had said in April that it was bidding $900 million for the patents in a bid to beef up its intellectual property portfolio. Chip-maker Intel had also expressed interest. "Following a very robust auction, we are pleased at the outcome of the auction of this extensive patent portfolio," George Riedel, Nortel's chief strategy officer and president of business units, said in the statement. Nortel, once Canada's largest company, filed for bankruptcy in 2009 and was auctioning off the patents in order to pay off its creditors. It began the closed-door auction of its patent portfolio on Monday. BlackBerry maker Research in Motion, which is also Canadian, said in a statement that its share in the purchase was approximately $770 million. Sweden's Ericsson said its contribution was $340 million. It was not immediately clear how much Apple and Microsoft contributed. "The Nortel patent portfolio reflects the heritage of more than 100 years of its R&D activities and includes some essential patents in telecommunications and other industries," Kasim Alfalahi, chief intellectual property officer at Ericsson, said in a statement.