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.
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Filed Under: bankruptcy, itc, patent troll
Companies: kodak, nortel
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
New Rule
Right?
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Don't kick Kodac while they're down.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: New Rule
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re: New Rule
[ link to this | view in thread ]
It's a Kodak Moment.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
How did they manage that?
A billion...for essentially doing sweet FA...and they still manage to go bankrupt.
Wow.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
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.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
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.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
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.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: New Rule
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: It's a Kodak Moment.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re: It's a Kodak Moment.
http://www.indiegogo.com/bearlovegood?a=675468
[ link to this | view in thread ]
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.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
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.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
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.
[ link to this | view in thread ]