When the world’s biggest patent auction resulted in the spending of US$4.5 billion, its no wonder the new owners call themselves the Rockstar Consortium.
On Monday the group that paid that amount for some 4,000 patents belonging to bankrupt Nortel Networks announced the way has been cleared to finalize the deal.
Rockstar said the U.S. Department of Justice’s waiting period for review of its purchase of the majority of the patent portfolio has expired, and as a result it is free to consummate the acquisition.
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“We are pleased to emerge from this review process, and are looking forward to working with technology related companies to provide them with access to Rockstar’s technology,” the consortium’s CEO, John Veschi, said in a news release. “The entire industry has benefitted from Nortel’s groundbreaking innovations, and we are eager to work with them to establish licenses enabling the continued use of this technology.”
Veschi was formerly Nortel’s chief intellectual property officer.
The consortium includes Research In Motion, Apple Inc., Microsoft Corp., LM Ericsson and Sony. Now that the waiting period has expired, Rockstar will be able to negotiate licencing agreements with the partners and others to licence the patents.
