Apple and RIM Prevail Over Rivals in Nortel Patent Auction

Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) and Research in Motion (NASDAQ: RIMM) are part of a winning consortium of technology companies that successfully bid on the mobile patent portfolio of bankrupt telecommunications company Nortel Networks.Nortel, which went bankrupt in 2009, has an expansive list of tech patents. They range from wireless, data networking, semiconductors, Internet and more.In addition to Apple and RIM, Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT), EMC (NYSE: EMC), Ericsson and Sony (NYSE: SNE) collectively paid $4.5 billion in a competitive auction.According to a Reuters report, "The auction drew interest from major technology companies including Google, which opened the bidding at $900 million in April, Apple and Intel -- a trio relatively new to an increasingly litigious mobile industry which is seeing booming demand for smartphones and tablets."George Riedel, chief strategy officer and president of business units at Nortel, applauded the strong auction showing."The size and dollar value for this transaction is unprecedented, as was the significant interest in the portfolio among major companies around the world." Nortel was primarily known as a telecommunications manufacturer with products ranging from routers to telephone carrier network solutions. Nortel also helped to pioneer the development of equipment and software that brought the emergence of wireless phone networks.The company held $2.4 billion in cash when it filed for bankruptcy in January, 2009.