Friday, February 12, 2016 10:45 am

PORTLAND, Maine (From the Daily News) -- The owners of bankrupt Lincoln Paper and Tissue LLC might have found a buyer to operate one of the mill's paper machines, but who that is and where the operation would occur is not clear from bankruptcy court documents filed this week.

Lincoln Paper and Tissue attorneys D. Sam Anderson and Roma N. Desai on Monday filed a Notice of Private Sale and Expedited Hearing motion with U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Portland seeking court approval of their $75,000 sale of intellectual property rights to Gordon Brothers Group of Boston as early as Feb. 23. Gordon Brothers bought the Lincoln-based mill in a Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceeding in December 2015 for $5.95 million.

The $75,000 intellectual property sale includes trademarks, copyrights, trade secrets, inventions and patents. It excludes the company's bookkeeping and records, information data software, servers and related software products.

Gordon Brothers wants to sell the rights to a third-party buyer because "certain of the [intellectual property] assets are needed to operate the machine at issue and the buyer is conditioning the sale on certain of the [intellectual property] assets relating to the paper machine being made available as part of the sale," according to the motion.

"Further, the debtor has determined that a private sale is preferred for the [intellectual property] assets given that the costs attendant with a public auction would increase the burden to the estate and decrease any return of the sale to the estate," it continues.

The sale "will result in a significant recovery for the estate."

The court filing indicates that the buyer "is not affiliated with the debtor [Lincoln Paper and Tissue] or any officer, director or shareholder" of the debtor.

Parties seeking to object must file opposing motions by Friday, Feb. 19, according to the documents.

Anderson and Desai did not immediately return requests for comment on Thursday.

The hearing on the motion is set for at 9 a.m. Tuesday, Feb. 23, at U.S. Bankruptcy Court, 537 Congress Street in Portland, according to the documents.