To make a broad point without going into details about patent quality:
Nortel: $4.5B / 6,000 patents = $750k per patent.
Motorola: $12.5B / 14,300 patents = $856,164.38 per patent.
Plus 6,700 patents pending.
Plus a hardware company.
There are obviously a lot of other factors, but it seems like a pretty good deal, and maybe a smarter way for Google to go about acquiring patents without having to deal with bidding wars with consortia of their competitors.
Either way, it seems the lawyers are winning. Everywhere.
The other critical factor is whether the acquisition is a cash deal or a share based deal, a share arrangement would be very efficient indeed, hard to find meaningful details of the acquisition.
you need to adjust for the fact that Motorola has 3 bil in cash and some deferred tax benefit of roughly equal amount -- the actual cost to Google is around $7 billion.
you could adjust for the fact that Motorola has 3 bil in cash and some deferred tax benefit of roughly equal amount -- the actual cost to Google is around $7 billion.
Nortel: $4.5B / 6,000 patents = $750k per patent.
Motorola: $12.5B / 14,300 patents = $856,164.38 per patent.
Plus 6,700 patents pending.
Plus a hardware company.
There are obviously a lot of other factors, but it seems like a pretty good deal, and maybe a smarter way for Google to go about acquiring patents without having to deal with bidding wars with consortia of their competitors.
Either way, it seems the lawyers are winning. Everywhere.