Google apparently raised a few eyebrows with its bids for Nortel’s patent portfolio this week, especially when the it bid US$3.14159 billion — or pi-billion — before ultimately losing out to an Apple and Microsoft led consortium and its $4.5 billion bid.
The Internet search giant offered up several other unique bids, according to the Guardian, such as $1,902,160,540 (Brun’s constant) and $2,614,972,128 (Meissel-Mertens constant).
“They were bidding with the distance between the earth and the sun,” an unnamed source said. “One was the sum of a famous mathematical constant, and then when it got to $3 billion, they bid pi - $3.14159 billion. Either they were supremely confident or they were bored.”
Nortel put its patent portfolio on the auction block after declaring bankruptcy in 2009. The company said its portfolio included patents and patent applications covering “wireless, wireless 4G, data networking, optical, voice, internet, service provider, semiconductors and other patents. The extensive patent portfolio touches nearly every aspect of telecommunications and additional markets as well, including Internet search and social networking.”
Presumably, had the bidding topped $10 billion, Google would have countered with eleventy-billion.