The Chicago Tribune suggests that increasing volumes of intellectual property are now being sold at to shore up balance sheets. So who in the open-source world is buying?

I ask because it's almost certain that someone is going to purchase the IP, and it's likely to be a Microsoft or Oracle (or, possibly worse, Intellectual Ventures), to the extent the IP is worth anything. Instead, now would be a good time for open-source patent-pooling collectives like Open Invention Network to buy up these assets and use them to protect open source.

Red Hat, IBM, and others have established such collectives in the past to defend open source. Red Hat, in particular, has gone on the open market to buy IP from AOL and others. Who is buying now?