Courts approve sale of Nortel patents to Apple, others

Courts in both the US and Canada have approved the sales of Nortel patents to a consortium of companies led by Apple. On July 1st Apple, Microsoft, Ericsson, EMC, Sony and RIM beat out competing offers from Google and Intel to win a treasure chest of 6,000 Nortel patents. The total cost of the sale was US$4.5 billion.

After the sale there was some concern that that patents would give the winning companies unfair advantages in the marketplace and over the weekend it was reported that the Feds were looking into how Google and its Android OS would be affected. Being the losing bidder, it's no doubt that Google held out hopes to have the sale blocked, but Reuters now reports that courts both in the US and Canada have approved the sale. This gives the winning bidders – mainly Apple – a significant advantage in the smartphone sector as many of the patents were related to the up-and-coming 4G LTE technologies.