Nortel Bid Gains Approval In Canada
Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ:MSFT), Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) and their other partners have won the Canadian court permission to acquire the patent portfolio of bankrupt Nortel Networks Corp. for close to $4.5. The same bid is facing scrutiny in Untied States from the American Antitrust Institute that has pushed for an investigation into the acquisition of the Patents by the rivals of Google Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG)
The sale of Nortel’s patents turned out to be the biggest patent auction in the history of the patent sale, with more than 6,000 patents under the hammer and numerous potential lawsuits in the horizon. The Apple Inc. and Microsoft led group, known as the Rockstar Bidco out bid the $900 million bid by Google Inc.
In the Ontario, Canada Superior Court, the Judge approved the sale of the patens after a small objection was cleared to make way for the sale. In United State Kudge Kevin Gross of the U.S. Bankruptcy approved the sale to clear off the debts owed by Nortel in United States.
Nortel has begun selling its businesses since 2009 after filing Bankruptcy. The company successfully raised more than $3 billion before the patent auction. The 6,000 patent set was the last major asset owned by the company and will help the creditors with their recoveries.
The Rockstar Bidco group includes the companies Apple Inc, Microsoft Corp., Sony Corp. (NYSE:SNE), Research In Motion Ltd. (NASDAQ:RIMM), EMC Corp. (NYSE:EMC) and Ericsson AB. These companies came out the highest joint bidders after a day auction in the end of June that involved 19 rounds of bidding. Intel Corp. was also involved in the auction, with the chip maker putting in the first bid.
The American Antitrust Institute has asked the Federal regulators to look into the investigation to rule out any targeting of Google’s Android Operating System. The sale of the patents to some of the largest rivals of Google raised concerns over an attack on the Android operating system by Google. The three of the largest bidders for the Nortel bid have their own operating systems that compete against Google.
Google will however not be going home empty handed from the lost auction, with the company set to receive $25 million along with additional expenses of the lost bid. Google on the other hand will have to worry about other much worse things, like an increased number of patent lawsuit against its partner manufacturers and itself.
