Apple, Google may buy Kodak patents, report says

Kodak

(CBS News) Apple and Google may be working together to buy patents from Eastman Kodak, a recent report claims.

According to the Wall Street Journal, the two tech giants may be collaborating to drive down the price of Kodak's patents. The patents have yet to sell, Journal reports.

Kodak may decide to hang on to its patents, however. CNET reports that the company has not made a finite decision on the fate of its patents.

"The company reiterates that it has not reached a determination or agreement to sell the digital imaging patent portfolio, and may retain all or parts of it as a source of creditor recoveries in lieu of a sale if it concludes that doing so is in the best interests of the estate," a Kodak spokesperson wrote in the statement to CNET.

Kodak's patents could be worth up to $2.6 billion, according to court documents submitted by the company.

Kodak filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in January.

[hypnotoad72]

That's where the money is: patents, investing other peoples' money, speculating, and cashing in before everyone else does. Funny nobody mentions that when discussing "other peoples' money", since taxes run America but far more runs Corporate America (which includes tax-funded handouts, subsidy, bailouts, etc...)

Hard work and real innovation wouldn't dare be attempted, because one does the work and then the patent trolls will cash in. It's just an offshoot of the same anti-innovation and anti-business paradigms.

Ironic, isn't it?

[sjc_1]

Patents are abused and reduce innovation. Patents are issued too easily and for too long a period of time. Patents should not be monopoly licenses, they should allow the recovery of development investments ONLY.