Nortel announced last week that it has sold off more than 6,000 patents for $4.5 billion. The winning bid comes from a consortium of vendors including Apple, EMC, Ericsson, Microsoft, Research In Motion and Sony.
The patents include Nortel’s wireless and wired networking and voice patents. According to Nortel,” the extensive patent portfolio touches nearly every aspect of telecommunications and additional markets as well, including Internet search and social networking.”
The final auction price of $4.5 billion is a dramatic increase from the $900 million that Google first offered for the patents back in April. Nortel declared bankruptcy in January of 2009 and has been selling off assets ever since.