Barnes & Noble big winner in Borders IP auction

The Borders’ IP auction went off as scheduled and Barnes & Noble apparently walked away with all the pieces they wanted. Barnes & Noble paid $13.9M for most of the trademarks (Borders, Waldenbooks, Brentano’s), websites and other IP.  (Another $1.9M was gained carving out some international rights.)  Borders had been B&N’s number one competitor, sporting 399 bricks and mortar stores. There was more risk in letting the IP go to another potential competitor than paying the price to retire the Borders brand, say some analysts.