Pricing the assets for auction – setting the floor for initial offers -- was a challenge as intellectual property asset sales of this size are rare, according to one participant.

“We found it to be very difficult because there were not many comparable transactions that had happened before,” says David Berten, partner and founder of Global IP Law group, Nortel’s counsel in the sale. “There was nothing of this size ever transacted. You let the market essentially set the price.”

And price was the sole objective. That the intellectual property was spread across six vendors instead of one or two or three did not affect the sale, Berten says.

“In bankruptcy, there are no non-financial drivers to the deal,” he says.

The deal has to clear Canadian and U.S. courts, which will review it at a joint hearing on July 11. After that, Nortel will essentially exist in name only as its last vestiges are wrung dry by nostalgics and litigants.