The United States Department of Justice has just approved Nortel’s patent sale, worth $4.5 billion, to Apple, RIM, Microsoft, Sony, and Ericsson. The consortium, going by the name Rockstar Consortium, released a statement to the press today:
The US Department of Justice waiting period for review of Rockstar’s acquisition of a substantial majority of the former Nortel Networks patent portfolio, has expired and the company is free to consummate the acquisition. The portfolio consists of approximately 4,000 patent assets related to a broad array of networking, communications, and internet technologies.
The consortium is currently working on licensing deals so that they can continue to provide the industry with access to the patents that were purchased from Nortel. Also, everyone should probably get ready for the next round of litigation to begin between these cellular companies and Google. Just a gut feeling we have.
