Facebook’s initial public offering, plagued by trading errors and a 16 percent drop in the share price, will push more individual investors out of a stock market they already distrust after the financial crisis.WILMINGTON, Del. – U.S. and Canadian judges on Monday approved a $4.5 billion cash bid from a consortium that includes smartphone makers Apple and Research In Motion for thousands of patents held by bankrupt telecom-equipment maker Nortel Networks Corp.
The judges approved the results of Nortel’s patent auction at a joint hearing Monday, just over a week after the consortium offered five times more than Google Inc.’s initial bid of $900 million for some 6,000 patents and patent applications.
The purchase –and its approval– represent a significant win for a consortium of companies that includes Apple Inc., EMC Corp., LM Ericsson AB, Microsoft Corp., Research in Motion Ltd., and Sony Corp. Phones running Google’s Android system compete with software and devices made by the new holders of the Nortel patents. The patents cover many technologies, including data networking, semiconductors and wireless systems known as fourth generation, or 4G.
Nortel has said the portfolio “touches nearly every aspect of telecommunications and additional markets ... including Internet search and social networking.” They are among the last major assets of Toronto-based Nortel, which filed for bankruptcy protection in 2009. The company has been selling off its operations since then.
The sale of the Nortel patents comes as smartphone manufacturers square off in legal battles over such common features as swiping gestures on touch screens. Such lawsuits could allow patent holders to capitalize on their rivals’ success in the market through royalty settlements.
