Bids
for bankrupt camera maker Eastman Kodak Company’s (PINK:EKDKQ) patents have
come in at lower prices than estimated. The bidders for the patents believed to
be Apple Inc.(NASDAQ:AAPL) and Google Inc(NASDAQ:GOOG).
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Kodak,
which went for bankruptcy protection in January 2012, has put up 1000-plus
patents for sale as part of its court-led restructuring and to raise cash to
pay off its debts.
The
patents for digital imaging innovations have been valued at about $2.6 billion,
the company's court filings showed. The bids that have come in for some of its
patents have been as low as $150 million.
Incidentally,
Apple, one of the reported bidders for the patents, has already filed a suit
against Kodak for about ten of the patents, trying to prevent the company from
selling them. Kodak has obtained a favourable ruling from the court with regard
to two of the disputed patents.
Report
by the Wall
Street Journal and Financial
Times suggest that Apple has teamed up with Intellectual Ventures, a patent
holding firm, to bid for Kodak's patents, while Google is working with San Francisco-based
RPX, which is a patent aggregator and licensor.
Kodak
did not confirm the veracity of the reports, the BBC said in a report.
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"The
auction process, including information about bids and the identity of bidders,
is confidential pursuant to an order of the Bankruptcy Court," it said in
a statement, the BBC said.
"Disclosure
of submitted bids or the identity of bidders would violate the court's order
and Kodak believes that speculation about the details and potential outcome of
the auction is inappropriate."
Kodak
will announce the winning bidder by August 13. The patent portfolios on sale
include ways to let devices capture, process, edit and transmit images.
The
firm has already raised more than $3bn by licensing some of the technologies to
Samsung, LG, Motorola, and Nokia.
Actually those were only opening bids. The actual auction starts tomorrow and will likely last 5 days. During the action is when the prices go up. In the past other auctions go into the billions after the initial opening bid is cast. The initial bid was simply required to participate in the auction. So the amount is meaningless.
ReplyDeleteExactly and we all know who is going to bid on them. Just more of the same antics of what goes on in the market to shake the weak hands out. Don't be surprised to see this stock push up into the .70's or more. JMHO.
ReplyDeleteI hope apple will come short. Can't stand apple. Suing everybody around. Morons.
ReplyDeleteIt is difficult to pinpoint exactly what Kodak should have done to survive
ReplyDeleteThey should have stuck to digital photography in other devices , who buys cameras nowadays neway? that is a clear obvious answer. Migrate the tech to mobile.
ReplyDelete