Apple-led consortium peels off Nortel patents

By James Bagnall - One hundred and sixteen years after its founding, Nortel Networks has reached a deal to sell all its remaining patents for a remarkable $4.5 billion to a consortium of six high-tech giants – Apple, EMC, Ericsson, Microsoft, Research In Motion and Sony.

The price easily trumped an opening bid of $900 million by Google for all 6,000-plus Nortel patents, and emerged...