Apple has joined other bidders like Intel, Ericsson and Google for a trove of patents from Nortel Networks, the bankrupt maker of phone equipment in a sale slated for later this month.
The move would put Apple in competition with Google for the 6,000 patents, which could be used in smartphone technology. Google, looking to bolster its Android software, offered $900 million in April in what Nortel said was a starting point for an auction. RPX, a San Francisco-based patent- buying firm, is considering a bid, an attorney for the company had said.
Steve Dowling, a spokesman for Cupertino, California-based Apple, declined to comment.
Research In Motion, the maker of the BlackBerry smartphone, and phone-equipment supplier Ericsson are also weighing bids, people familiar with those companies? plans have said.
To top Google?s bid, companies have to offer at least $929 million under rules approved by the courts overseeing Nortel?s bankruptcy. The growing interest may boost the price for Nortel?s patents to more than $1 billion, said Rich Ehrlickman, president of Boca Raton, Florida-based patent broker IPOfferings.
Nortel announced this week it was delaying the sale of about 6,000 patents and patent applications until June 27 after the Canadian company said previously it would hold the sale on Monday.
The patents include intelligence on wireless internet technology and social networking. Nortel, which filed for bankruptcy in January 2009, has already sold most of its physical assets.