Kodak's Legacy? Arms Dealer For The Patent Wars?
from the selling-off-the-pieces dept
As many people expected, Kodak has officially moved to sell off its patents to whoever can abuse them the most. Since the company is in bankruptcy, it needs permission to do this, but that's the easy part. These days, thanks to a totally broken patent and legal system, the patents are incredibly "valuable." Not because they represent any kind of actual innovation, but because they represent a magic tollbooth that lets the holder force other companies to pay. Of course, some of that magic wore off last month when the ITC noticed that one of Kodak's key patents -- one that it had used to score nearly a billion dollars in licensing revenue, was blatantly obvious and never should have been granted in the first place. Kodak claims it's going to appeal, but the patent sale will likely happen prior to any appeal going through. Either way, like other companies who failed to keep up with a changing market (hello, Nortel!), Kodak's final legacy may be supplying weapons to yet another battle in the era of technology patent nuclear war. It's not something to be proud of.
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Filed Under: bankruptcy, itc, patent troll
Companies: kodak, nortel
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New Rule
Right?
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Don't kick Kodac while they're down.
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Re: New Rule
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Re: Re: New Rule
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It's a Kodak Moment.
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How did they manage that?
A billion...for essentially doing sweet FA...and they still manage to go bankrupt.
Wow.
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Re: Re: New Rule
Go after their chief executives personally - after all they get huge salaries/bonuses these days - even at failing companies.
If that isn't enough then you could also pursue all those politicians who took donations from the company.
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Assuming that this decision is upheld after the appeal, how do we fix this boneheaded mistake?
The government granted someone a special privilege based on assumptions that turned out to be false. There should be some sort of compensation for those affected by this error, meaning, each and every American.
Heads should roll (and not in the metaphorical sense). If we just let this slide, we are basically rewarding incompetence from the USPTO and sneakiness from the corporations, who systematically abuse the patent system.
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Re: Re: New Rule
Loaning money has no guarantee of getting it back. That's why we have interest rates. Only entitled brats sue when an investment goes south. Real investors suck it up, and don't keep all their eggs in one basket.
Economics 101. You're welcome.
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Re: New Rule
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Re: It's a Kodak Moment.
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Re: Re: It's a Kodak Moment.
http://www.indiegogo.com/bearlovegood?a=675468
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Re: Re: Re: It's a Kodak Moment.
http://www.indiegogo.com/bearlovegood?a=675468
Make sure to take a picture of it first and send it to Kodak. Preferably with some of their patented technology for good measure.
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more dissembling
Masnick and his monkeys have an unreported conflict of interest-
https://www.insightcommunity.com/cases.php?n=10&pg=1
They sell blog filler and "insights" to major corporations including MS, HP, IBM etc. who just happen to be some of the world’s most frequent patent suit defendants. Obviously, he has failed to report his conflicts as any reputable reporter would. But then Masnick and his monkeys are not reporters. They are patent system saboteurs receiving funding from huge corporate infringers. They cannot be trusted and have no credibility. All they know about patents is they don’t have any.
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Re: more dissembling
Property and government-granted monopoly privileges are different. Please learn the difference. It is getting kind of tiresome that you are so consistently in the slow learner group, plus you are truculent about it.
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