1:40 AM
Diana D'Cruz
In bankruptcy, the photography pioneer has sold for $ 512 million 1100 patents to reassure its creditors.
The photography is finished for Kodak. The fallen giant announced Wednesday, December 19 selling a large patent portfolio auction. Since last summer, the U.S. firm currently placed under the protection of Chapter 11 bankruptcy trying to sell some of its intellectual properties to reassure its creditors.
The group and its bailout funds $ 525 million for the sale of 1,100 patents. They then pass into the hands of two companies specializing in the management of patents: RPX Corporation and Intellectual Ventures.
The new giants of the photo
In fact, behind these two groups lie the giants of high-tech that will use licenses. According to a document submitted to the court, there are including Apple, Microsoft, Google, Amazon, RIM, or Facebook on the American side. Asian manufacturers are also interested in technology Kodak, as the South Korean Samsung and Taiwan's HTC, Huawei Chinese, Japanese and Fujifilm.
These patents are primarily related to the capture, storage and analysis of digital images. Initially, Kodak hopes to recover $ 2.6 billion, playing card lawsuits for patent infringement, in order to raise prices. This strategy has not worked and the firm in bankruptcy has finally reached an agreement to end the ongoing actions.
After 131 years of existence, the photography pioneer filed for bankruptcy on January 19, failing to innovate at the right time. Kodak thought indeed hard as iron in the sustainable future of the film, at the expense of digital.
