Owner of Nortel Patents Sues Cisco For 'Immense' Patent Infringement 83
jfruh (300774) writes "The venerable Nortel Networks may have vanished into bankruptcy five years ago, but thanks to U.S. patent law, it can strike back at its old rival Cisco from beyond the grave. Spherix, a Virginia-based 'research company' that bought Nortel's patents in 2009, has filed a federal lawsuit claiming that Cisco has been knowingly violating 11 Nortel patents. 'The vast majority of Cisco's switching and routing revenue from March 2008 until the present is and has been generated by products and services implementing technology that infringes the Asserted Patents,' the lawsuit claims."
From the Article (Score:5, Informative)
It purchased the Nortel patents from the Rockstar Consortium, which had acquired a large collection of patents for US$4.5 billion after Nortel went bankrupt in 2009.
Some questions:
Q. How did SPHERIX afford to pay for the patents?
A. Spherix Incorporated, a company originally founded by Gilbert Levin, has acquired four families of mobile communication patents from the Rockstar Consortium in exchange for initial consideration of up-front cash and Spherix common stock.[6] Rockstar will also receive a percentage of future profits from Spherix after recovery of patent monetization costs and an initial priority return on investment to Spherix.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rockstar_Consortium
Q. Haven't I heard of Rockstar before?
A. Members of the consortium are Apple, Inc., BlackBerry, Ericsson, Microsoft, and Sony.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rockstar_Consortium
Q. So this is a shakedown?
A. Youbetyourass!