Canadian patent holding company Mosaid said its board of directors has rejected an unsolicited takeover bid from patent rival Wi-LAN, which last week filed a patent suit against Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) and other high-profile companies charging that their products infringe on one patent that relates to CDMA and HSPA technology and another relating to Wi-Fi and LTE.
Wi-LAN is offering to acquire Mosaid for $38 in cash per share. Carl P. Schlachte, chairman of Mosaid's board, called Wi-LAN's offer "clearly inadequate and highly opportunistic," and even more so now that the company has purchased Core Wireless Licensing.
Mosaid purchased Core Wireless and its portfolio of 400 patent families, consisting of approximately 2,000 wireless patents and patent applications originally filed by Nokia, 1,215 of which have been declared essential to 2G, 3G, and 4G standards, Mosaid said. The patents have remaining lives of 10 years, on average, and cover 49 different countries.
Mosaid said it conservatively estimates that revenues from licensing, enforcing and monetizing this wireless portfolio will surpass the company's total revenue of approximately $1 billion since its formation in 1975. Mosaid said it is basing that revenue estimate in part on the anticipated worldwide sales by unlicensed wireless device manufacturers of $500 billion of mobile handsets and smartphones over the next five years, and an extrapolation of sales of such devices for the remainder of the lives of the patents.
"Through the execution of a stepped-up patent licensing and litigation strategy and the acquisition of the Core Wireless patents, Mosaid is on the threshold of the most significant period of value creation potential in its history," said Schlachte. "Shareholders will determine in the coming weeks whether they will share in the potential upside of this value enhancement, or see that value captured exclusively by Wi-LAN in exchange for Wi-LAN's highly opportunistic offer of just $38 in cash per share. We urge shareholders to reject Wi-LAN's inadequate offer."
For more:
- see this release
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