RIM released a press release earlier this week detailing their side of the story with the Nortel bankruptcy auction. RIM claims that Nortel, a fellow Canadian company, has been trying to bar them from bidding on their patents and other portions of Nortel being auctioned off. They are doing this by putting in a precondition that RIM cannot bid on other Nortel assets for one year.
RIM claims Nortel knew this and entered in these conditions to bar RIM since they knew RIM was interested in purchasing other Nortel assets. RIM is offering 1.1 billion compared to Nokia Siemens Networks offer of $650 million. Nortel is saying that RIM had their chance to qualify for the auction and missed it.
It looks like RIM is interested in the patents that Nortel holds for LTE. This fits in perfectly with RIM’s recent purchases of other patents to build their portfolio.
It will be interesting to see how this plays out… I guess they are missing some brotherly love in Canada.
