"One billion dollars."
Posted on 03/25/2011 9:10:30 AM PDT by Erik Latranyi
Kodak is suing RIM and Apple to get royalty payments relating to patents, and a decision should come down today, Bloomberg says. Kodak's CEO has said that he expects to get licensing payments totaling $1 billion.
A Kodak VP writes us: "the U.S. International Trade Commission is expected to announce whether it will review an initial determination from an ITC judge which suggested that Apple’s iPhone and RIM’s BlackBerry don’t infringe Kodak’s patent. If the ITC's full Commission decides to review the earlier ruling, then another process would begin at the ITC, in which the full Commission will ultimately decide if that initial determination stands."
Kodak has a patent on image preview software in camera phones and is demanding royalties from RIM and Apple. Kodak already won royalties worth $550 and $414 million from Samsung and LG respectively.
It's easy to see this as an example of the patent system run amok. It's hard to imagine why "image preview in camera phones" is something that should be patented and that someone could get a license from. As Bloomberg notes, Kodak's actual business is faltering and the company is increasingly turning to this kind of litigious behavior to pad its bottomline.
(Excerpt) Read more at businessinsider.com ...
Interesting...
"One billion dollars."
"One billion dollars."
I have just patented ‘taking pictures using devices with lenses and films’.
Kodak will now pay me!
Of course, this is not nearly as good as the patent on ‘selling goods for money’. That one is really big.
Interesting... I didn’t hit “post” twice...
“Interesting... I didn’t hit “post” twice...”
It’s a software glitch somewhere. It’s been happening on almost every thread since the servers went down several months ago.
RIM job?
Kodak is a big company in a mid-size town. An old company. Its management grew old, protectionist -- that was back in the 80's and 90's. They weren't willing to promote the risk-taking. Very much like the Detroit car-makers, and even worse. The photo film business was Kodak.
The motive of punishing the inventive continues. As does the abuse of the very IDEALS of what *US* patents are about -- encouraging INVENTION and INNOVATION. Today the patent industry is like what was LEFT BEHIND IN ENGLAND. Punish all risktakers, destroy all innovation and protect the established.
Kodak is on its last legs. Anytime it is able to sell off a business unit for an even remotely good deal, it will. Of course these are the business units that are the more successful ones in the company because they are the only ones that are worth anything.
In 1982 Kodak employed 60,000 people in the Rochester area. Today that number is 7,000. Kodak really isn’t a big company anymore. If it still exists in 5 years I will be surprised.
Kodak had big plans to be the leader in digital imaging, a strategy developing products to be ready when the culture switched. They missed it by five years.
I hadn’t realized how much they have downsized. In any case the weak close to death get taken over by bad spirits unless surrounded by a caring family and community. That applies to people and enterprises both.
And in other news, Kitchenaid is suing Oster for their “Food Preview” technology. Essentially, Kitchenaid made their blender using glass and could see the contents of the food, whereby Oster then used glass, violating Kitchenaid’s patent.
In other wrods, how the Hell is a preview of an image a patent in the first palce???
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