The Rockstar consortium, backed by companies such as Microsoft and Apple is planning to offload some of Nortel's networking patents which they collectively acquired by outbidding tech rival Google.
Microsoft, Apple, RIM (now known as BlackBerry), Sony and Ericsson jointly purchased Nortel's network patents by forming the Rockstar consortium, after Nortel filed for bankruptcy in 2011. The process concluded in 2012 with the combined value of the patents approved by the US Justice Department to be $4.5 billion against Google's direct offer to Nortel of $900 million.
Now, Bloomberg is reporting that the Rockstar consortium is holding meetings with potential buyers and planning to offload some of the patents in order to monetize the intellectual property.
The consortium which previously held close to 6000 patents currently owns about 4,000 after selling some of them to Spherix, Inc in July. The patents and applications related to telecommunication and networking were much sought after by Google in order to strengthen their mobile foothold. After the failed attempt, Google and some of the Android OEMs were sued by the consortium in November 2013 using the same patents.
Representatives from the participating companies have declined to comment on Rockstar's plans as of now, and buyers have requested to remain anonymous as the information is not supposed to be public.
Source: Bloomberg
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