Its becoming clearer..

Elop was not sent to Nokia to save Nokia, he was sent to Nokia to save the US mobile phone industry.

Call me a conspiracy theorist, but I dont see any other reason. Two years ago Nokia would not have considered, not even for a moment, selling their patents. Now that Elop has juiced them dry, they are almost at the point where they will have to give them away. Think how much money microsoft can make from Nokia's patent portfolio, they wont even need to buy Nokia and all its dead weight.