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The Canadian government has signed off on the sale of key wireless Nortel Networks Corp. assets to Telefon AB LM Ericsson ERIC-Q , ruling the Swedish company's $1.13-billion (U.S.) bid poses no national security concerns and does not qualify for an Investment Canada review.

The announcement by Industry Canada Minister Tony Clement clears the way for the deal, and comes over the objections of Waterloo, Ont.-based Research In Motion Ltd. RIM-T , which says it was blocked from bidding.

The company had called for the deal to be reviewed, saying the technologies – the older CDMA and newer-generation LTE – should stay in Canadian hands.

Mr. Clement rejected that, saying the older CDMA technology and the non-exclusive LTE technology weren't critical to national security.

“There are no grounds to believe this transaction could be injurious to Canada's national security,” Mr. Clement said Wednesday afternoon. “[Ericsson] has the resources and customer base necessary to bring Canadian innovation to market.... This deal is very beneficial to Canada.”

Ottawa could have objected to the sale on two grounds – national security or in an Investment Canada review, which can only be struck up if the book value of the sold assets exceeds $312-million (Canadian).

Mr. Clement said that although the winning bid was more than $1-billion, the book value of the wireless technologies was only $182.5-million. Therefore, the deal was not eligible for review, he said.

A joint review of the sale by Canadian and U.S. courts ended last month.

Some had argued the enterprise value of the sold assets was much higher and should be considered instead of the book value. Canada is in the process of introducing new regulations that would consider the enterprise value instead, which also takes into account the value of intellectual property and employees.

Even if those new regulations had been put in place, however, they wouldn't have applied to a partial sale of assets such as the bidding process won by Ericsson. Enterprise value would only be considered in the sale of an entire company.

Mr. Clement struck an international tone, saying Canada shouldn't resort to “protectionism” by blocking a sale simply because a company isn't based here. An Ericsson subsidiary has operated in Canada for more than 50 years.

Meanwhile, Mr. Clement said his staff could find no evidence that RIM was blocked by courts from making a bid for the assets, as it had argued.

Nortel still holds the patents for its LTE technology, having sold only a non-exclusive licensing agreement to Ericsson.

Ericsson will keep 800 Nortel employees in Canada at roughly their existing salaries once the deal is completed, Mr. Clement said.