A Look at the Zany Math-Based Bids Google Made While Failing to Buy Those Nortel Patents

When Apple , Microsoft , Google and others go bidding on a treasure trove of Nortel wireless patents this past week , the search giant from California made a serial of , well , unconventional bids that had observers flummox .

Pi . Brun ’s constant quantity . The Meissel - Mertens constant . An astronomical unit ( 93 million mile to the layman ) . Are these the bidding of a serious society , a ruse to throw rival for a loop , or a sign that Google was becoming bored with the outgrowth on the whole ?

We may never know , but root speaking withReutersthis week are shed what they know about one of the more peculiar bidding wars to come out of the high-pitched tech infinite in quite a while .

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“ Google was bidding with turn that were not even numbers , ” one of the sources said . “ It became clear that they were bidding with the distance between the earth and the sun . One was the nub of a famous numerical constant , and then when it got to $ 3 billion , they bid pi , ” the source said , bring the bid was $ 3.14159 billion . “ Either they were supremely confident or they were blase . ”

If the ruse was one of supreme confidence it was misplaced , as Google in the end lost the bid to a syndicate of six companies that had partnered when the bids exceeded $ 3 billion . Those companies included unlikely friend in Apple and Microsoft , as well as RIM , EMC , Ericsson and Sony , although such partnerships are not uncommon when high prices and invaluable patent are on the line .

Google , for its part , told Reuters it was disappointed with the result ( the company was an other frontrunner after place an early $ 900 million bid in April . Perhaps they knew the bids would go past their $ 4 billion cap all along , and were just own a morsel of fun ? Either way , joke ’s on them . [ Reuters ]

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