Apr 28, 2011 11:24 GMT  ·  By

Search giant Google has just been identified as the last minute bidder for modu's patent portfolio, which is now up for sale.

After Dov Moran's modu company failed to hold an IPO (initial public offering) on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange (TASE), it was forced to cease its operations in December 2010.

As modu's employees petitioned for its liquidation all the company assets are now up for sale, including its patent portfolio.

Apparently, modu owes more than $130 million to its creditors, banks and employees, but doesn't seem to be able to raise the same amount by selling its assets.

The 100 patents registered by the company during its short existence were previously bid for $1.5 million by Kensington Technology Corporation, in late March.

However, just when the company was about to submit Kensington Technology Corporation's offer to the Tel Aviv District Court, which is handling modu's liquidation, a higher bid was received.

The offer seems to have been submitted a few days ago, but only recently it was discovered that the higher bidder is indeed Google.

In the light of the new events, a new pricing round has been set, which means that modu is expecting a counteroffer from the previous bidder, Kensington Technology Corporation or from any other company interested in acquiring its patents.

Otherwise, Google might add Modu's patents portfolio for the mere price of $2 million. By boosting its patent portfolio, Google is trying to prevent some of the lawsuits that are usually filed by companies or persons.

Furthermore, this is not Google's first attempt to expand its patent portfolio, as the company has recently bid $900 million for Nortel's patents.

However, Nortel has registered about 6,000 patents that includes technologies such as spanning wireless, wireless 4G, data networking, optical, voice, internet, service provider and semiconductors, which somewhat justifies the huge bidding price.