The fight for smartphone supremacy led to a furious bidding war for the patents and patent applications of Nortel Networks Corporation this spring. The Canadian telecommunications company filed for bankruptcy in 2009 and had sold off various businesses for a total of $3 billion, but Nortel’s intellectual property attracted far more interest.
In April, Google Inc. made a $900 million stalking horse bid, an unprecedented amount for a patent portfolio and an offer that seemed calculated to preclude an auction. It didn’t. Instead, the biggest names in the tech sector competed aggressively for the assets during an auction held during the last week in June at the New York offices of Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton. The proceedings were covered by confidentiality agreements, but the auction indisputably generated a dramatic increase in the portfolio’s value.
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