Rockstar Consortium Reportedly In Talks To Sell Portion Of Nortel Patents

Following the long Nortel Networks patents saga from yester-year, Rockstar Consortium, which outbid other big players to grab the portfolio, sued Google, Samsung and others over alleged infringements. That hasn't been the end of recent dealing with the intellectual property, however, if sources that spoke to Bloomberg are correct, and it may be the collective has had second doubts about the value of purchase.

The Rockstar consortium is composed of big-name companies like Microsoft and Apple, which ultimately won a bid-fest to score $4.5 billion in Nortel Networks patents. According to unnamed sources who spoke to Bloomberg, the consortium is in talks to sell some of these patents. These sources, who are people said to be familiar with the matter, say that Rockstar hasn't had much in the way of success when it comes to licensing out the patents it acquired.

Though the final bid was required back in late 2010, the purchase wasn't ultimately given the go-ahead until 2012, and with it came approximately 4000 patents. At the time, the patents were desirable, and Rockstar won the bid over other big players, among them being Google. Since then, however, some of the patents have already been sold off.

This past summer, Spherix Inc. bought some of the patents from Rockstar for $1 million in stock and an unstated amount in cash, as well as some percentage in future sales. Thus far, Rockstar hasn't confirmed whether the rumors are true, and whether the consortium is looking to sell off another batch in a way similar as this past July or a larger portion wasn't stated.

SOURCE: Bloomberg