This is a slightly different take on the Bloomberg news... good info regarding Intel. Sorry if already posted.
Tech News No. 2: Patents are still hot
Interest around mobile-patent specialist InterDigital (Nasdaq: IDCC ) has been white hot all summer. The company owns 8,800 patents, including ones fundamental to wireless communication. With all the mania surrounding mobile patents, the company has taken advantage of the situation and hired an investment-banking team to explore selling itself.
With just weeks to go until first-round bids are due, Bloomberg reports that buyers are starting to line up. On the obvious end are Samsung and HTC. Samsung accounted for 26% of InterDigital's revenue last year, so the company probably has good insight into the value of its patents. HTC has been trying to gain better patent protection after agreeing to stiff terms with Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT ) on Android licensing issues.
Speaking of Microsoft, both it and Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL ) have shown interest in InterDigital as well. The two joined an earlier consortium to purchase Nortel's patent portfolio and have both looked for further patent acquisitions since.
On the more surprising end of bidding, Google -- which was seen as an early front-runner in the InterDigital sweepstakes -- is reportedly losing interest now that it has Motorola's patent trove. However, the most surprising entry is Intel (Nasdaq: INTC ) . The processor giant has ramped up its efforts to become more competitive in the mobile space. For example, last year it bought Infineon's wireless-chip unit for $1.4 billion. Buying InterDigital would be an even more aggressive move.
InterDigital is already worth about $3 billion, and there's speculation that final bidding for its patents could reach higher than $5 billion. It's unclear whether Intel would fold the patents into its existing operations or cross-license them to companies willing to use its processors in mobile devices to spur adoption of its mobile chips. However, what is clear is that if the company shells out north of $5 billion for mobile patents, it'll be Intel's biggest "all-in" moment in the mobile race.
http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2011/09/12/is-a-tech-buyout-frenzy-on-the-horizon.aspx
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