Nortel

Apple grows war chest, takes ownership of 1,024 Nortel patents

By Joseph Keller, Saturday, Nov 17, 2012 a 5:20 pm

Apple has reportedly received a transfer of 1,024 patents or patent applications from Rockstar Consortium, formerly Rockstar Bidco, a group of technology companies that bid on thousands of patents that had previously held by Nortel. Apple had been part of Rockstar Bidco, which bid against Google for the patents, and had access to the patents through that consortium. The transfer of patents to Apple’s ownership, however, could better position them in ongoing litigation. Owen Thomas of Business Insider reports:

Department of Justice gives Apple the green light to acquire Nortel and Novell patents

By Simon Sage, Tuesday, Feb 14, 2012 a 11:10 am

The U.S. Department of Justice recently approved Apple's acquisition of various Nortel and Novell patents. The need to clear these purchases with the DoJ was for anti-trust purposes; after all, Apple already has a huge market lead, and any patents that could put competitors out of business would result in less choice for American consumers (which I think we can all agree is a bad thing).

Google said "no" to joining Microsoft, Apple, in Novell bid? [Updated]

By Rene Ritchie, Wednesday, Aug 3, 2011 a 11:07 pm

Microsoft General Council, Brad Smith tweeted out a response today to Google's open letter on an alleged anti-Android patent conspiracy, basically calling shenanigans on their whole patent conspiracy act:

Google says we bought Novell patents to keep them from Google. Really? We asked them to bid jointly with us. They said no.

Google responds to World War Patents, says hostile, organized campaign against Android

By Rene Ritchie, Wednesday, Aug 3, 2011 a 6:34 pm

Google SVP and Senior Legal Officer, David Drummond has blogged about the recent trouble Google and their manufacturing partners have had over patents with the likes of Apple, Microsoft, and Oracle.

Android’s success has yielded something else: a hostile, organized campaign against Android by Microsoft, Oracle, Apple and other companies, waged through bogus patents.

Apple and Google continue patent war, both bidding for InterDigital?

By Allyson Kazmucha, Thursday, Jul 21, 2011 a 10:06 pm

The Nortel Patent auction looks to have been just the first in a series of bidding wars between Apple and Google, as reports now indicate both companies may now be interested in InterDigital, a wireless patent firm. Apple was part of the winning $4.5 billion Nortel patent bid, and according to their 10-K filings, it appears their share of that bid was $2.6 billion.

iPhone Live 160 - World War Patents

By Rene Ritchie, Saturday, Jul 9, 2011 a 8:16 pm

Rene and Florian Mueller of FOSS Patents discuss Apple vs. Samsung, HTC, and Motorola, Microsoft licensing fees for Android, Nortel auction, Oracle vs. Google, and Lodsys vs. iOS developers. This is a special edition of iPhone Live!

Background

Hosts

Rene Ritchie (@reneritchie)

Florian Mueller (@FOSSPatents)

Google brings Pi, Apple beats them to Nortel LTE patent punch?

By Rene Ritchie, Saturday, Jul 2, 2011 a 12:06 pm

Some more information has come to light about the Nortel patent auction, which saw a consortium that included Apple win big, and Google get frozen out. According to Reuters, however, Google had some fun along the way:

"It became clear that they were bidding with the distance between the earth and the sun. One was the sum of a famous mathematical constant, and then when it got to $3 billion, they bid pi," the source said, adding the bid was $3.14159 billion.

"Either they were supremely confident or they were bored."

Apple part of $4.5 billion Nortel patent acquisition, Google not

By Rene Ritchie, Friday, Jul 1, 2011 a 10:20 am

According to Reuters, a consortium of tech companies, including Apple, BlackBerry maker RIM, Microsoft, EMC, Sony, and Ericsson have won the auction to acquire Nortel's mammoth $4.5 billion dollar mobile patent portfolio. How much of that will come from Apple is currently unknown, though RIM is on the line for $770 million and Ericsson, $340 million. The companies are expected to pool the patents and use them both to protect against patent lawsuits and, of course, launch lawsuits of their own.

Are Apple and Google battling for Nortel patents?

By Brian Tufo, Monday, Dec 13, 2010 a 4:35 pm

According to Reuters Apple and Google might be in a battle for the once mighty Nortel Networks patent portfolio, an acquisition that could help either of the two companies gain an edge in the mobile industry.

Nortel filed bankruptcy back in January of 2009 and the vast majority of their business has been sold off with the exception of their large number of patents that could aide in the improvements of mobile communications. There is said to be over 4,000 patents with a suspected value of around $1 billion and sources are saying Apple and Google both want a piece of these patents to protect themselves from giants such as Nokia in the courtroom.