Apple share of Nortel patent buy worth $2.6 billion
updated 09:40 am EDT, Thu July 21, 2011
Makes company single largest buyer
Apple's portion of the Nortel patent buyout on June 27th was worth $2.6 billion, says UBS analyst Maynard Um. The information comes from Apple's latest 10-Q filing, which was made public on Tuesday in parallel with its third-quarter results. As the buyout was worth about $4.5 billion in total, the figure makes Apple by far the largest partner of a consortium including companies like Sony, Microsoft and RIM.
The patents should strengthen the consortium's legal position in the smartphone world. Until its demise Nortel controlled over 6,000 patents, covering aspects of everything from Wi-Fi and LTE through to social networking. By gaining rights to the concepts, Apple and the rest of the consortium should be able to defend themselves against some future lawsuits, although there have also been worries that the group might use the patents to target Google's Android platform.
Mac Enthusiast
Joined: Mar 2002
Not sure whats wrong with this
"although there have also been worries that the group might use the patents to target Google's Android platform."
Why can't they? Microsoft does it, Oracle is doing it why can't the rest of these guys do it?