Nokia has just sold 450 different patents covering mobile technologies to a patent troll:

Sisvel is a company you’ve probably never heard of, and to give you an idea of what they do just read their slogan: “We protect ideas.” Yes folks, they’re a patent troll, which is a defined as a company that buys up patents and then proceeds to bring other companies to court for infringing on said patents. They’ve just announced that they’re acquiring 47 patent families from Nokia, giving them more than 450 new patents that they can add to their arsenal. What’s surprising is that 33 of the patent families, which come in at somewhere over 350 patents, are defined by Nokia as essential to 2G, 3G, and 4G technologies.

According to Wireless Week Nokia pulled in $640 million in patent fees during the 6 months that made up Q2 and Q3 of 2010. Now Nokia isn’t saying how much money they’re going to get from Sisvel, but one can assume that it’s a hell of a lot of cash. Still, is the short term gain worth it? The Finnish handset maker has stopped making their own smartphone software, is in the process of moving all their factories to Asia, and we just found out that they purchased a company that designs feature phone operating systems so they can start from scratch in the low to mid end device range.

What’s Elop up to?

If I had to guess, I’d say Nokia did this at the behest of Microsoft. That patent troll will now probably proceed to attack Android with these patents. I wouldn’t be surprised to find out that Microsoft is controlling them somehow and is using the patent troll company to insulate itself from the negative press associated with this behaviour.

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Nokia has just sold 450 different patents covering mobile technologies to a patent troll: Sisvel is a company you’ve probably never heard of, and to give you an idea of what they do just read their slogan: “We protect ideas.” Yes folks, they’re a patent troll, which is a defined as a company that buys ...