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Court Approves Google's Bid For Nortel's IP
Meshach writes "A court had approved Google's bid to take ownership of Nortel's arsenal of $900 million worth of patents and patent applications. Other bidders will have until June 13 to submit competing offers. Unfortunately, neither shareholders of Nortel nor the company's employees waiting for a pension will see any of that money."
Can we really trust them not to "be evil" here? I'm personally suspicious of any company trying to stockpile patents...
Geez, maybe the IPv4 problem is worse than I... wait, what?
$900M is less than what the last 3 CEO's of Nortel walked out the door with in salaries and benefits. We really really need a corporate revolution where executives are not rewarded in ridiculous amounts.
John Roth pocketed $100M in 2000.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/story/2001/03/14/nortel010314.html
If CEO's get options they should be at only a slight discount on the current stock price and not execisable for 20 years. Long term value is what is needed. Not short term decisions which strip assets and long term strength in trade for short term magic accounting numbers.
It does not exist to provide you with a steady flow of warm fresh milk poured into your mouth. It is thousands of other men and women looking to take money out of your pocket and put it into their own.
- Alexander Elder.
If you don't like those terms, then don't play the mother-fucking stock market. Get a life and go put your money elsewhere. If you're a Nortel pensioner, or some stupid ass pension fund who bought Nortel stock, then you ought to be smart enough to know that bondholders get paid out from [what is essentially a bankruptcy] sales first. Not shareholders. Bondholders.
Little bit of wikipedia on how the bond/equity holdings work and then no one will be pussy-sore over the fact that this money isn't going to a bunch of stupid retired fucks.
>Unfortunately, neither shareholders of Nortel nor the company's employees waiting for a pension will see any of that money.
Why?
Great. This comes out on election day... when the once bright star of Canadian high-tech companies is sold in pieces to various non-Canadian interests.
(trying to be as non-political about it...)
Nor will my aunt, who is disabled and who has lost her *ENTIRE* pension, see a penny.
Unfortunately, that's why we call it "bankruptcy."
Kriston
The people who loaned the company money, aka "The Creditors" should always get first dibs as defined by law. Duh. I hate it when people add stupid comments like the one about no one will see the money. Idiots that don't care about the law will remain idiots, and poor ones at that.
For the pensioners, it should be considered criminal fraud to offer a defined benefits pension without having money in the bank to back those promises.
Can we stop using the term "Intellectual Property" to refer broadly to trademarks, copyrights, and patents, which all operate under different rules and have different motivations? By lumping them all together you are muddling the important issues and giving unfair advantage to potentially undesirable ideas. It's quite simple: "Court Approves Google's Big for Nortel's Patents"
Was that so hard?
A frequent comment here on Slashdot is that patents should not be transferable or that a company should not be allowed to own a patent covering technology that it did not invent or that a company shouldn't be able to own a patent covering technology that it doesn't intend to use. Here, Google is doing all of these things, since no doubt at least some of the patents cover technologies that Google will never put into practice.
Many licensing-focused non-practicing entities got their patents from bankruptcy sales. This process encourages investment by ensuring that investors will be able to recoup some of their investment via the sale of IP assets. The NPEs then focus on extracting value from the IP assets in much the same way that a company that buys a warehouse at a bankruptcy auction might try to extract value from it by renting warehouse space to others. This is especially valuable for startups that may have significant IP assets but comparatively little in the way of tangible assets.
Here, Google will try to extract value from the IP assets in its own way. For some of the patents it means not having to take a license from whomever else might have bought them. For others it might mean adding patents to a defensive portfolio. Others might even be licensed or sold to other companies.
It's fine to argue that patents shouldn't be transferrable or that NPEs shouldn't be allowed to exist, but those policies would also prevent sales like this one and lead to less investment in companies with significant IP assets, particularly startups.
If Google were really to stick to its motto and would like access to the brightest minds here they would pickup those pour souls lost at Nortel. The rich tank the company and buy it back for nothing later, muuuch cheaper to operate that way...my old man taught me the ways as he's been around and seen it as well as been told by his ancestors the same story of how this trick works.
Aren't the products and services they took over for naught without the patents behind them? I don't quite understand how this works.
Since Intellectual Ventures started suing, I now completely disbelieve the claims of any business entity that it is buying up patents for "defensive purposes only." However, even when it does inevitably start suing, Google will likely be able to evade the "patent troll" label (and thus take advantage of judicial preference for "practicing" entities over NPEs/PAEs), since it also engages in R&D. Clever.