alt Hacker NewsNortel's patents were among the first that were critical to modern MIMO OFDM (they really were on to the future in that sense, it's not hyperbole), but most never went to Qualcomm or Huawei. When Nortel went belly-up a consortium called Rockstar co-owned by Microsoft, RIM and a few others ended up buying them for a hefty price (more than $4 billion). It's possible some of them have made their way over to Qualcomm or Huawei as part of sales over the years I guess.
Huawei's patents aren't nortel's patents. The patents huawei generated through their own work are based of off and substantially informed by the stolen work nortel did that nortel patented. It doesn't have anything to do with nortel's actual patents. It has to do with the prior art that was stolen by the prc and given to huawei.