Apple and Samsung are among the companies expected to take part in an upcoming sealed-bid auction of RPO’s manufacturing assets and patent portfolio, which covers technology surrounding the company’s Digital Waveguide Touch (DWT) solution. California-based RPO Inc. filed for bankruptcy in April of this year, and an auction to liquidate its protected manufacturing processes and IP portfolio will take place on November 3rd. The company’s DWT technology, which is touted as a superior touch solu...

A group of companies including Apple, Microsoft, Research In Motion, Sony, EMC and Ericsson offered the winning bid in an auction that will net them Nortel’s extensive portfolio of patents. The bankrupt telecommunications company held roughly 6,000 patents, and the six-company consortium’s winning bid came in at $4.5 billion. Among the big losers were Google, which opened the bidding at $900 million, and Intel. Patents within the massive cache cover a wide range of technologies including wireless...

A bankruptcy judge on Thursday approved Dish Network’s winning bid and gave it the OK to acquire Blockbuster for $320 million. Dish’s bid topped other bidders including Cobalt Video, a group of hedge funds lead by Monarch Alternative Capital, and billionaire investor Carl Icahn earlier this week at an auction for Blockbuster’s business and assets. New York Judge Burton Lifland gave his approval in bankruptcy court, and Dish will now assume control of 1,700 remaining Blockbuster locations, ...

Pending approval at a hearing scheduled for Thursday, Dish Network will acquire Blockbuster Inc. following an auction that took place earlier this week. The company’s winning bid was approximately $320 million but the acquisition is expected to land at about $228 million in cash, taking into account Blockbuster’s inventory, available cash and other adjustments. Blockbuster was put up for sale at an auction on Monday following its recent bankruptcy filing, and several companies competed for control...

The business of smartphone production is starting to look more like the a John Grisham legal novel. While handset makers try to out-innovate each other with high-end, spec-heavy handsets consumers will flock to, lawyers are trying to out-flank each other with patent suits and red-tape. No longer can you have an armada of talented engineers and a driven executive team, you also must possess a war chest of hardware and software patents to prevent your company from entering litigation limbo — just Google t...

The fate of Blockbuster is now up for auction. On Monday Blockbuster’s next owner, and future, will be decided. According to Reuters, it’s possible that a new owner could close the video rental chain, liquidate it entirely, or continue operations in a bid to compete with the likes of Netflix and the growing number of online media streaming services. Reportedly, Dish Network Corp. and Carl Icahn have already placed bids for the company, and SK Telecom is also interested. Monarch Alternative Capital...

Speaking to Reuters recently, Iraq’s communications minister, Mohammed Allawi, said he believes the auction for a fourth mobile phone operator license at the end of this year could fetch between $1 billion and $2 billion. Similarly, Allawi said that the licensing fees, installation and equipment required to install a new network would cost between $1 billion and $2 billion. 40% of the revenues raised from the auction would be given to the mobile operator, 35% would be given to the public, and the final ...

The FCC today announced that it will hold an auction on July 19, 2011 for sixteen licenses in the 700MHz spectrum. The government agency has two licenses that operate in the 698-704MHz and 728-734MHz frequencies (Block A) along with fourteen licenses that operate in the 704-710MHz and 734-740MHz frequencies (Block B); all sixteen licenses have a 2 x 6MHz pairing and 12MHz of bandwidth. The 700MHz spectrum is currently what wireless providers AT&T and Verizon Wireless are using to build out their 4G, L...

The AP reports that U.S. President Barack Obama will “double the available amount of wireless communications spectrum over the next 10 years in an effort to keep up with the ever-growing demand for high-speed video and data transmission to cell phones, laptops and other mobile devices.” The plan, which will call for the auctioning off of 500 MHz of federally owned spectrum, will be put into a Presidential Memorandum to be signed today. The White House, in an official statement said: “Thi...

Remember all those rumors that surfaced last year and spoke of an upgraded iPod Twith an on-board camera? Now is your chance to get your hands on not one, but two iPod Touch prototypes with the aforementioned rear-facing camera. The iPod Touches are designated DVT-1 and DVT-2 and are thought to be units produced for testing by Apple’s development team. These pieces of iPod history fell into the hands of the seller when he purchased them at a flea market from another seller who originally purchased them ...

First it was the White House that voiced its opposition earlier this week to the FCC’s plan for free wireless broadband using the white space spectrum, now it is Congress’s turn to weigh in on the matter. In a letter to the FCC,  the incoming chairmen for the Senate and House Commerce committees, Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) and Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), urged the FCC to focus on the upcoming digital TV transition and to stay away from “complex and controversial items that the new Con...

Score one for Google and company as the FCC has cleared the way for the use of the white space spectrum for free, nationwide wireless internet service. Calling the reports of interference by the opposition as being “overblown”, recent tests conducted by FCC engineers in Seattle showed that the white space could be used for wireless internet service without a significant risk of harmful interference. Bad news for T-Mobile who has vehemently opposed the plan as their recently launched 3G network, wh...