Consortium buys Nortel Networks

California: Apple and Research In Motion are part of a winning consortium of six companies buying bankrupt Nortel Networks’s remaining patent portfolio for $4.5 billion, in a hotly contested auction that saw Google and Intel lose out.

Microsoft, EMC, Sweden’s Ericsson and Sony were also part of the group, telecommunications gear maker Nortel said.

The sale includes more than 6,000 patents and patent applications spanning wireless, wireless 4G, data networking, optical, voice, internet, semiconductors and other patents. The most prized ones relate to mobile broadband technology used in emerging 4G standards such as long-term evolution (LTE).