The French government and private equity funds have offered to buy future licence revenue for a portion of Alcatel-Lucent’s wireless patents, according to a Les Echos report. The potential deal, which would be put together by a government-owned entity founded to invest in patents, would involve around a quarter of Alcatel-Lucent’s 29,000 patents, the report said. A spokesman for France’s finance ministry did not immediately have any comment.

Patents IP Global valued the company’s IP at €5bn prior to the vendor obtaining €1.6bn in loans in mid-December. Alcatel-Lucent has been working with RPX to exploit its patents with the aim of achieving annual sales of €500m. However, Les Echos maintains that this has generated little success so far.

FierceWirelessEurope: Report: French government offers to buy Alcatel-Lucent's patents; TelecomTV content partner.