Rockstar Consortium Sells 4.000 Patents to RPX Corp

The Rockstar Consortium, which includes such tech giants as Apple, Microsoft, BlackBerry, Ericsson and Sony, has recently sold its portfolio of smartphone-related patents to a firm from San Francisco called RPX Corp. This may mean that the end of the patent war between the guys from Cupertino and their rivals is near. As noted in the latest press release published by RPX Corp, the company plans to licence the aforementioned patents to Google, Cisco Systems and a number of other high-profile vendors.

The amount of money the consortium have managed to obtain is equal to $900 million. Four years ago, the patents were purchased for $4.5 billion.

The deal is expected to end a series of lawsuits -- which effectively pitted Rockstar against smartphone makers who developed Android phones -- around patents for some basic smartphone technology, including navigating through documents, data networking and Internet access.

Former Rockstar Consortium portfolio includes 4.000 patents. Well, to be honest, getting rights for such an immense amount of smartphone-related technologies for only $900 million is a great success for RPX Corp.

[via CNET]