Intel announced that it has snapped up around 1,400 telecommunications patents and patent applications registered by Powerwave Technologies.
According to the reports, the subject matter of the patents mostly pertain to the territory of mobile infrastructure. The value of the purchase, as well as the reason behind it, has not been circulated in the public domain.
Procured through the Los Angeles-based private equity firm Gores Group, Intel acquired the patent portfolio when Powerwave Technologies closed down in 2013 on account of having gone bankrupt. The latter applied for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in January 2014.
Intel, describing Powerwave as a pioneer in telecommunications infrastructure products, including antennas and base stations, said in a statement that the patents relate to, among other things, telecommunications infrastructure technologies, including tower-mounted amplifiers, antenna structures, power amplifier configurations, crest factor reduction and digital pre-distortion circuitry.
It is interesting to note that Intel’s snapping up of the patents originally registered by Powerwave Technologies has come at a time when the company is gearing up for completely wireless PCs structured around its next-generation SkyLake processors in a bid to override the requirement of cables for power and peripherals.
Addressing the Intel’s Developer Forum (IDF) held this week in San Francisco, Kirk Skaugen, the general manager of the PC Client Group of the Santa Clara-based firm, said that the 2-in-1 computers due to be launched in 2015 will boast of a suite of wireless technologies.
With the SkyLake microprocessor designed to operate WiGig, besides 802.11n Wi-Fi and WiDi, it is said that that it was in furtherance of this vision that Intel struck its first telecommunications-centric patent deal in 2012 and coughed up $375 million for 1,700 patents – “patents primarily related to 3G, LTE, and 802.11 technologies” – from InterDigital.
