Nortel patent portfolio of about 6000 (families??) of patents was sold in auction for impressive 4.5 Billion USD on 27.6.2011. Google was expected to be one to get the portfolio initially.
“WASHINGTON — Internet giant Google said Monday it is bidding $900 million to buy the patent portfolio of Canadian technology company Nortel at a bankruptcy auction.”
rationale was also stated in Google press: ”…obtaining the portfolio would “create a disincentive for others to sue Google” and also help open source software projects such as Android and Chrome.”
Well end result was different.. “A consortium of mobile technology firms including Apple, Microsof and Ericsson have outbid Google for a collection of strategically vital patents from Nortel, the bankrupt Canadian telecoms equipment maker. The group, which also includes EMC, BlackBerry maker Research in Motion and Sony, paid $4.5bn in cash for more than 6,000 patents covering wireless, 4G, data networking, internet and semiconductor technologies.”
So what?
Incumbent are fighting back on new entrant. Google has distributive entry model to mobile with SW only. The entry will not be easy. We will see in future two camps one for “old” world of having own brand and terminal and “new” one with creating value with different tacktics.
From IPR point of view it will be interesting to see which of Nortel patents will be eventually used against Google if any…
One can always speculate on strategic value of the transaction. Numbers from patent point of view are however as follows. According to USPTO Nortel portfolio has (with assignee name as Nortel)
4173 issued patents and
1225 pending patent applications.
So 4.5B / (4174+1225) = 833 487 USD per patent/application in this auction.
Additionally when you look on global database there is about 12300 hits on Nortel assigned patents leading to other esitmate of
4.5B/12300 = 365 000 USD per patent/patent application.
