Sony Corporation (NYSE:SNE) has announced that they will be paying $1.47 billion for Telefon AB L.M. Ericsson’s 50% stake in the Sony-Ericsson venture. Sony has bought Ericsson’s “five essential patent families” through this acquisition. This was an intellectual property agreement between the two companies. The acquisition will allow Sony to incorporate their mobile products into other offerings like PCs, TVs, tablets, etc. The venture was created 10 years ago and Sony wants to catch up with rivals through this acquisition. Going forward Sony plans to get very aggressive in the mobile market space. Below is the company press release:

According to consulting firm Gerson Lehrman Group and GizmoFusion, Sprint has finalized an LTE deal with contracts being signed with Ericsson, Alcatel-Lucent, and Samsung. The LTE service will be rolled out over the next 2-3 years as part of the decommissioning of iDEN on the 800MHz spectrum. It is likely that Sprint is looking to partner with Clearwire or T-Mobile. [GizmoFusion via Engadget]