Rockstar sells 101 patents to Spherix

The patents relate to access, switching, routing, optical and voice communication network devices. Spherix said in a statement yesterday that Rockstar is sharing usage information with Spherix and will help with efforts to commercialise the patents.

Anthony Hayes, CEO of Spherix, said the patents are "used daily by consumers and businesses" and "cover the way traffic, video and voice are carried over public and private networks."

"We believe this is a very valuable patent portfolio, containing both industry standard patents and patents found in product implementations of various Internet service and network device vendors throughout the world," said John Veschi, CEO of Rockstar.

This is the second time Spherix has bought intellectual property from Rockstar. In July last year, Rockstar sold seven patents relating to mobile communications to Spherix for an undisclosed sum, plus $60 million in stock and a percentage of projected profits.

The consortium, which also includes BlackBerry, Sony and Ericsson, acquired over 4,000 patents from Nortel for $4.5 billion in July 2011 after Nortel went into bankruptcy proceedings. The consortium outbid Google, which placed a final offer of $4.4 billion for the patents in the auction.

Rockstar was given clearance to purchase the Nortel patents by the Department of Justice on the condition that it licenses them on fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory (FRAND) terms.

In October last year, Rockstar sued Google for infringing some of the Nortel patents.

In August last year, Spherix filed a complaint against cordless telephone manufacturer Vtech and a complaint against wireless communications company Uniden.