Nortel Patents Live OnNortel Patents Live On

Nortel Networks announced its fourth quarter report a few days ago, even though the once-mighty telecommunications firm didn't have much to report after auctioning off most of its operations.

Creditors and former stockholders picking through the firm's remaining assets, however, can find a few gems. Its LG-Nortel partnership operation had revenues of $154 million in the last quarter of 2009 and its minority stake in Blade Network Technologies has some value, too, although it wasn't spelled out.

According to the report, the firm has some $2 billion in cash, although that figure will eventually be whittled down by creditors. The major asset appears to be Nortel's 3,000-plus patents, many of them for important LTE intellectual property. Nortel's Canadian neighbor Research In Motion once offered at least $1.1 billion for Nortel assets including its LTE intellectual property, but was rebuffed, according to media reports last year.

When Ericsson acquired Nortel's LTE/CDMA unit for $1.13 billion, it didn't get the LTE patents. According to media sources, several companies including RIM and some patent trolling companies are still interested in acquiring at least a piece of Nortel's patent portfolio. Another approach for Nortel could be to enter into a joint venture with another firm to hold the valuable patents.

Nortel doesn't have to sell its ownership positions in LG-Nortel or Blade and probably couldn't without the permission of LG and Blade anyway.

In a final piece of closure, it was reported that the private jet that shuttled former Nortel CEO Mike Zafirovski back and forth between his home in the Chicago area and Nortel's headquarters is no longer being used for that purpose. Zafirovski resigned earlier this year.

Creditors are expected to divvy up what's left of Nortel later in the year.