A consortium of six companies, including Apple, BlackBerry and Microsoft, on Friday acquired thousands of patents from bankrupt Canadian telecom group Nortel Networks Corp. for $4.5 billion (£2.8bn).

The winning bid was five times higher than the Internet search giant Google’s initial offer for the concerned patents.

Speaking on Google’s failure in the bidding war, a source said, "It became clear that they were bidding with the distance between the earth and the sun. One was the sum of a famous mathematical constant, and then when it got to $3 billion, they bid pi.”

The purchase of as many as 6,000 patents will give the winners, including Apple and Microsoft, the upper hand in any imminent patents disputes, in the field of smartphones.

Had Google acquired the patents, it would have been in a better position to guard its Android operating system from patent disputes. Software giant Microsoft has already started extracting money from numerous firms that run their devices on Android, claiming that Google’s Android infringe on patents held by it.

Another software firm Oracle has also claimed $6.1 billion from Google, claiming that Android violates several of Java patents.

The patents were the last major assets to be sold by Nortel Networks, which filed for bankruptcy protection in January 2009.