Reuters reports that Waterloo, Ontario-based Research In Motion may attempt to trump Google’s $900 million bid for the wireless technology patents held by Nortel Networks Corporation.
Citing two people familiar with the plans, RIM is exploring besting the $900 million offer put forth by Google earlier this month.
Google put forth the offer to help it combat a ever-growing patent war against other mobile giants. The Mountain View, California company, which operates the most popular search engine in the world, has seen incredible success with their Android mobile operating system — which is currently the most popular in the world.
Nortel filed for bankruptcy protection in January 2009 and was a pioneer in wired and wireless network technology. With upwards of 6000 patents and patent applications for numerous technologies listed as their assets, Nortel has had several companies expressing interest in acquiring the rights.
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Any sort of deal for the assets has been delayed, however, because of price haggling from both Nortel’s liquidators and potential buyers.
Google’s interest seems to be rooted in the fact that the success of Android in the mobile space in such a short time period has started to attract litigation. Any reason RIM has for enterting the fray are unknown, as it has yet to comment on the matter.
More on this to come…
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