It’s disappointing that a century old imaging firm Eastman Kodak is now nearing it’s end and is in the process of monetizing it’s digital imaging patents.
Kodak has filed a motion with the court to clear its closed bidding process which will be up for hearing in the court on 2nd July. There are two major patent categories being auctioned by Kodak, one is the Digital Capture Portfolio which includes about 700 patents related to image capture, processing and transfer. While the other, Kodak Imaging Systems and Services comprises of roughly about 400 patents which deals with image analysis, manipulation and tagging.
Kodak already has about 20 interested manufacturers interested in picking up the patent portfolios. Once granted approval by the court in July, the bidding process is set to take place in the first week of August and the winner of the same is scheduled to be announced publicly on 13th of August. Kodak will not divulge any information about the participating bidders and neither their bids, but only the final winner.
Kodak’s patent portfolio remains important in the industry as they have already managed to garner $3 billion in licensing deals with conglomerates like Samsung, LG, Nokia and Motorola since 2001. It also has current patent litigations against Apple, RIM and HTC which might generate further revenues for the bankrupt firm.
It would be interesting to see which company ends up owning the patent portfolio of Kodak, whether a digital imaging or a smartphone firm.
