Non-Practicing Entity ("NPE") Unwired Planet has announced that it will sell its patent licensing business for $30 million to Dallas-based Optis UP Holdings, LLC. Unwired Planet may also receive up to an additional $10 million in cash on the second anniversary of the closing of the transaction.
Further details of the sale can be found here.
Unwired Planet has a patent portfolio of approximately 2,500 issued and pending US and foreign patents spanning 2G, 3G, and 4G technologies, as well as cloud-based mobile applications and services.
The sale comes on the back of a second successful UK trial for Unwired Planet which was held in London in February 2016 (details here) and with the next (fourth) UK trial being scheduled for early May 2016.
It has been a somewhat turbulent time for many public IP companies ("PIPCOs") in recent times and so it will be interesting to see whether taking Unwired Planet's patents into private ownership provides any significant advantage when seeking to monetise the patent portfolio.
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