According to Bloomberg-sources, Intel, Ericsson, Samsung and HTC are named as potential buyers to the 8'800 patents that are now to be sold off.

Ericsson, according to Swedish newspaper E24, is already the owners of a large number of patents. This is in turn is due to the fact that Ericsson has been spending 15% of its revenues on R&D and has thus been able to come up with both products and solutions rendering patents.

Ericsson has lately been looking to strengthen its position in the increasingly competitive telecom-market. This summer it was announced that Ericsson was also part of the winning consortium when Nortel's patents were sold off. This bidding may indeed have been the start of something larger; now many companies are beginning to realize that the patents they are holding could possible be worth billions.

What the end-price might be is yet to be seen. Some argue that many companies, Ericsson and Apple included, have filled the gaps in their portfolios with the acquisitions of the Nortel assets. Google has chosen not to be part of the current bidding, relying instead on the newly acquired Motorola-patents. This could result in a lower price.