Microsoft-Organized Consortium Buying Novell Patents Are Apple, Oracle, MS, and EMC – Updated 5Xs

“It’s being reported on MacRumors that the members of the
consortium put together by Microsoft to buy the 882 patents from
Novell are Apple, Microsoft, Oracle, and EMC:

“Breaking news: Twitter user @VM_gville just pointed me to the
website of the German federal antitrust authority
(“Bundeskartellamt”), which discloses a merger (or more precisely,
joint venture) notification filed a week ago (on 09 December 2010),
according to which the four companies behind CPTN Holdings LLC —
the acquirer of 882 Novell patents — are Microsoft, Apple, EMC,
and Oracle. The product market in which the newly formed company
plans to operate is defined as “patents”

“Here’s the page where you can see the notation on the
Bundeskartellamt website:

“09.12.2010 – B5-148/10 – Unternehmen:

“Microsoft, Apple, EMC u. Oracle / CPTN Holdings LLC
(Anteilserw.+GU-Gründung)

“Produktmärkte: Patente

“So what’s the common interest? “Let’s all kill Android”?
There’s a limit on that, in that Google is also an Open Invention
Network member, so it has a license to these Novell patents
already. Of course there could be more than one theme,
virtualization, office suites.”

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