Yeah, great, 2% of the X86 market, sure we'll port our software to OSX - Samo Korosec
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Apple, Microsoft consortium wins Nortel patents
A CONSORTIUM of technology firms that includes Apple and Research in Motion (RIM) has won the hotly contested auction for Canadian telecom firm Nortel's patents.
The consortium, which also includes Microsoft, EMC, Ericsson and Sony, were bidding against other big players such Google and Intel for the Nortel patent portfolio, and will now presumably go around making sure that this competition has to pay it tribute before using them.
The prize was relatively hard to come by. Not only did it involve pledging billions of pounds, but it was a relatively drawn out process. Earlier this month Nortel announced that it was delaying the auction because of the significant interest.
"For reasons relating to the significant level of interest in its approximately 6,000 patents and patent applications, [Nortel is] adjourning the commencement of the auction for the sale of such assets from June 20, 2011 to June 27, 2011," it said in an earlier statement.
Now, in a statement the firm's chief strategy officer has celebrated the sale and its impressive dollar value.
"Following a very robust auction, we are pleased at the outcome of the auction of this extensive patent portfolio," said George Riedel, chief strategy officer and president of business units at Nortel. "The size and dollar value for this transaction is unprecedented, as was the significant interest in the portfolio among major companies around the world."
We expect that this will not be the last we hear of these patents, and are keeping a barrel of pixels at The INQUIRER available for covering any disputes that they may lead to. µ
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Microsoft filed an earlier letter to the courts, re: the sale of these Nortel patents to Google “would result in considerable disruption in the development and enhancement of various existing technologies and give the prospective purchaser an unfair competitive advantage”.
I imagine this letter will be referred to in detail if Microsoft (or Apple or other members of this $ 4.5 B patent club) try to use them to "disrupt" other members of the IT community. Of course, the "unspecified patent" FOD campaign seems to be working pretty well for Microsoft so far. Hopefully someone will call their bluff, while these companies struggle to pay off their $4.5 B "legal investment".
Every dollar that goes to Microsoft through product sales, litigation, or patent threat extortion is a dollar spent financing their anticompetitive business practices (you too, Apple). Google, for its part, will probably just spend the $ 3.14159 B it saved on the auction on innovation instead of litigation.