There's a lot more going on about Nortel's patents and a lot of confusion about whether they have been sold or not. The latest message is that they have not been sold. The author erroneously picked up the story from another source and has since been corrected. The auction that took place after NSN's initial approach. The approach from Nokia Siemens Networks was a stalking horse and under US bankruptcy law any other bidders must bid for the same "package of assets" - which did not include the patent rights, as NSN did not want them.
There's a report over on seeking alpha that Canadian company Research in Motion are arguing that the LTE patents are a national treasure and should be kept in Canadian hands.
There's more about stalking horse bidders in US Chapter Bankruptcy over here.
