Source:
ReutersTORONTO (Reuters) – Bankrupt Nortel Networks has reached a deal to sell its patent portfolio to Google for $900 million, kick-starting an auction process for assets coveted as weaponry for a growing wireless patent war.
Nortel said on Monday the planned sale includes around 6,000 patents and patent applications covering wireless, wireless 4G, data networking, optical, voice, Internet, service provision and semiconductors.
Interest in the patents has been robust, but the timeline for a deal has been delayed as Nortel's liquidators and potential buyers haggled over price.
Nortel will now begin an auction process to allow other potential buyers to improve on Google's offer.
Read more:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20110404/tc_nm/us_nortel_patents_1
If this goes through, this will be bad bad bad.
Google's monopoly on communications is starting to make the monopolies of Microsoft, AT&T, and General Electric look like chicken feed.
The patents should be broken up and sold to multiple unrelated companies.