Date Closed

July 29, 2011

Lead Office

Vancouver

Value

4.50 Billion USD

On July 29, 2011, a consortium of certain technology companies including Research In Motion Limited (RIM), as the winning bidder, completed the purchase of Nortel's remaining patents and patent applications for a cash purchase price of US$4.5 billion. 

The transaction includes more than 6,000 patents and patent applications spanning wireless, wireless 4G, data networking, optical, voice, internet, service provider, semiconductors and other patents.  RIM's portion of the purchase consideration is approximately US$770 million.

RIM (now known as BlackBerry Limited), headquartered in Waterloo, Ontario, is a Canadian telecommunication and wireless equipment company best known to the general public as the developer of the BlackBerry brand of smartphones and tablets, but also well known worldwide as a provider of secure & high reliability software for industrial applications and Mobile Device Management (MDM).

Nortel, headquartered in Mississauga, Ontario, was a multinationa telecommunications and data networking equipment manufacturor.

McCarthy Tétrault LLP represented RIM, the acquiror, with a team led by Cheryl Slusarchuk.