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Quicken Loans Inc. founder Dan Gilbert, Verizon Communications Inc. and Vector Capital Management are the leading bidders for Yahoo! Inc., according to people familiar with the matter.

All three submitted bids by Yahoo's Monday deadline, along with AT&T Inc. and private equity suitor TPG, said one of the people, who asked not to be identified discussing non-public information.

A decision could be made in about a week, one of the people said. One potential obstacle on choosing a winner is that Yahoo may decide to sell its intellectual property separately, the people said. Yahoo has received bids on its patents, including an offer from a consortium of smaller companies that aggregate intellectual property for royalties, one of the people said.

The patents will probably sell for less than $500 million, although they could be worth up to $1 billion, one of the people said.