Commerce One patents auctioned for $15.5 million

About 40 patents owned by bankrupt software vendor Commerce One were auctioned for $15.5 million in a San Francisco bankruptcy court last week.

The winning bidder, JGR Acquisitions, has kept quiet about its plans for the patents, which cover Web services technology. JGR attorney Mark Mullion of the Dallas law firm Haynes and Boone was not immediately available for comment.

Commerce One, which offered products for automating and integrating business processes across networks, filed voluntary petitions for relief under Chapter 11 in October.

The rest of Commerce One's remaining assets were sold for $4.1 million to Commerce One Acquisitions, a company formed by ComVest Investment Partners II and DCC Ventures, two large Commerce One creditors, says Commerce One lawyer Craig Prim of the law firm Murray & Murray.

Earlier this month, Lee Van Pelt, an attorney at Van Pelt & Yi, estimated the patents would sell for up to $10 million.

The patents cover methods for companies to communicate with each other and provide certain types of information when carrying out machine-to-machine transactions over the Internet. Patents from the company, which was a pioneer of electronic marketplaces, could cover e-commerce technologies widely used by other companies, according to analysts.

Filing a reorganization plan and paying off creditors is the next stage in Commerce One's bankruptcy proceedings, Prim says.

Gross is a correspondent with the IDG News Service.