However, Canadian opposition leaders joined ranks to put pressure on the government to stop the Nortel assets from falling in foreign hands. Michael Ignatieff, leader of the opposition Liberal Party, and Jack Layton, leader of the smaller New Democratic Party (NDP), called for an emergency session of parliament to stop the sale.

Said Ignatieff, 'This intellectual property that Nortel had, that was built up of taxpayers' money, is just so important and so valuable for the future of wireless technology around the world.''

Added Layton, 'We are fortunate to have some real success stories in this country and our government should be working to help success stories to succeed.''

But Canadian industry minister Tony Clement refused to say whether the government will intervene to stop the Nortel sale.

He said, 'We have laws in this country, we will apply those laws fairly.

'We welcome foreign investment, we continue to do so. We continue to obtain foreign investment, that is a good thing for our economy, but we also expect foreign investors to abide by the laws of the land.''

Under the deal, Nortel is selling nearly 600 patents to Ericsson.

But lawyers for Nortel told the court that these patents don't include Long-term Evolution or LTE.

The lawyers said the LTE patents will be sold later with other patents under another court-supervised auction, and Canadian companies could bid for them.