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Rockstar selling patents for $900M - Good news for SPEX
us.etrade.com/e/t/invest/...223DN004639&provider=DowJones
DJ Rockstar Consortium to Sell 4,000 Patents to RPX -- Update
Dec 23, 2014 10:07:00 (ET)
By Ashby Jones
In yet another sign that the smartphone-patent wars are starting to cool, Apple Inc. and a handful of other big technology companies have agreed to sell the bulk of a jointly owned portfolio of telecommunications patent assets for $900 million, less than a quarter of the $4.5 billion they paid for the full portfolio four years ago.
Rockstar Consortium Inc., has agreed to sell more than 4,000 patents to San Francisco-based RPX Corp., a patent clearinghouse that helps companies protect themselves from patent lawsuits.
The deal will put an end to several high-profile lawsuits filed by Rockstar against companies that make phones powered by the Android operating system.
The companies that make up Rockstar--Apple, Microsoft Corp., BlackBerry Ltd., Ericsson Inc., and Sony Corp.--won a bidding war with Google Inc. to purchase the full portfolio of about 6,000 patents in 2011 from the bankrupt Nortel Networks Inc. The companies tucked 4,000 patents into Rockstar, and distributed the remaining 2,000 patents among each other.
RPX, meanwhile, will turn around and license the patents to a separate syndicate of about 30 other technology companies that include Google and Cisco Systems Inc. Funds from the syndicate made up much of the $900 million paid for the patents.
"This is the biggest syndicate of its kind and its formation proves that companies can actually collaborate in...cooperative licensing at scale," said John Amster, RPX's chief executive, in a statement.
Mark Chandler, Cisco's general counsel, called the deal "constructive for the entire industry."
