Apple-Google Consortium Gets Kodak Patents For $525 Mn


Apple-Google Consortium Gets Kodak Patents For $525 Mn

Bangalore: Kodak has finally sold off approximately 1,100 patents to a tech consortium of 12 tech companies including Apple, Google and Facebook. The $2.5 billion valuation set by the once thriving camera company was negotiated to $525 million, which would be split among the 12 buyers.

With the sale, Kodak, which had filed for bankruptcy early this year is expected to make its position better. According to Antonio Perez, CEO of Kodak, “The monetization of patents is another major milestone toward successful emergence” from bankruptcy. The tech consortium was organized by Intellectual property aggregators Intellectual Ventures and RPX.

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However as reported by Wired, the future ownership on the patents are not clear. The 12 companies who invested the money will either come to a deal or “IV and RPX will likely have the patents and license them. Going forward, neither firms will sue the companies that bought in, like Apple and Google. But IV or NPX could go after other companies they feel are infringing on these patents,” said Santa Clara University Law professor Brian Love to Wired.

The deal is going to prove beneficial to the companies like Apple, RIM, HTC and Samsung, which are already facing lawsuits from Kodak over patent infringement.