The Rockstar Consortium is finally starting to wind down, after three years of attacking Google and other smartphone makers.

The sale of 4,000 patents to patent holding firm RPX Clearinghouse for $900 million is the first move to stop the patent battles, currently affecting the smartphone industry.

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Apple, Microsoft, BlackBerry, Ericsson and Sony invested $4.5 billion to acquire Nortel smartphone patents, and created the patent troll Rockstar Consortium to hurt other companies.

The owners of Rockstar Consortium will still own 2,000 Nortel patents, these will all go to the respective companies.

The new holder, RPX, will offer patent licensing to Google, Cisco and any other company in need. RPX expects to license the patents to over 30 technology companies simultaneously, and should pay off the $900 million investment quickly.

Cisco labelled this a "victory for common sense", in a blog post, Cisco's General Counsel Mark Chandler had this to say:

"This step should also send a strong message to companies who toy with the idea of 'monetizing' their patent portfolios through transactions with private equity and non-practicing-entities, or by shaking down other industry participants: They will find themselves isolated,"

Apple paid the most into the Nortel patents, a total of $2.4 billion, but have been moving away from patent cases for the past two years. Apple's CEO Tim Cook has said there will be major change in the way Apple deal with patent claims in the future.

Even though Google and Apple have not fought often in court, Apple has been actively fighting Samsung for over two years, in back and forth trials across the globe.

Apple announced it would wind down patents battles against Samsung, except from the U.S., where it will continue to fight patent battles.

TagsRockstar Consortium, RPX Clearninghouse, Patent, litigation