It emerged today that Google bid Brun’s constant and Meissel-Mertens constant in the auction for Nortel’s patents. These numbers are well known to mathematicians. When the auction got to 3 billion USD, Google bid Pi. The press speculates that the company was either supremely confident or bored.
Here is a thought: Google was not bored and probably knew that there were other corporates in the run. Google’s only objectives were to avoid that patent trolls such as Intellectual Ventures ended up owning the portfolio, as well as securing a role in the next stage of the process. Google can talk with Apple if needed but would find it more difficult to talk with a belligerant patent acquisition fund.
Google never liked formal auction processes organised by banks, either in the context of acquisitions or securities offerings. Google’s IPO 
This is my theory – only the bidders and bankers involved in the process know what really happened.
