RPX Buys Rockstar Patents - Quick Facts

(RTTNews) - RPX Corp. (RPXC) announced that its subsidiary, RPX Clearinghouse LLC, executed an agreement to purchase the patent assets controlled by Rockstar Consortium LLC. Rockstar is the entity formed in 2011 by Apple, Blackberry, Ericsson, Microsoft, and Sony to purchase approximately 6,000 patent assets from the Nortel bankruptcy estate.

Approximately 2,000 of these patent assets were previously distributed to various Rockstar owners and are not part of this transaction. RPX Clearinghouse will receive license payments from a syndicate of over 30 companies, including Cisco and Google. Upon closing, which is subject to regulatory approval and other customary conditions, syndicate participants will receive non-exclusive licenses to the Rockstar patents, and RPX Clearinghouse will make the patents available for license to all other interested companies under fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory (FRAND) terms.

The RPX Clearinghouse syndicate includes a broad range of software and media providers, semi-conductor manufacturers, wireless carriers and wireline network operators, Multiple System Operators (MSOs), and Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs).

RPX received a transaction fee for its work, a portion of which has already been included in 2014 guidance and the remainder of which will be recognized upon closing.

In addition, RPX expects to contribute approximately $35 million to the transaction in exchange for ownership of the patents. RPX will recoup a majority of the investment from licensees already under contract.