Kyocera Corp has accused Eastman Kodak Co. of patent infringement as Kodak heads to court to gain approval for the sale of its cache of digital-photography and Web-based photo-application patents.
According to the suit Kodak printers and digital camera’s infringe 15 patents owned by the Japan based company. Kyocera alleges that these infringements occurred during Kodak’s widely publicized Cahpter 11 bankruptcy. Kodak has declined to comment on the pending suit. The complaint says that Kodak has denied liability for the alleged infringement.
Kodak is awaiting approval during the bankruptcy process to move ahead with the sale of its digital photography patents to various technology corporations for an estimated value of $525 million. Kyocera’s objections prompted filings from other digital photography corporations like Richoh Co., Nikon, Motorola, and Oracle. These companies license Kodak patents and fear that the sale of Kodak’s patents will “extinguish every right, license and defense” they have against Kodak in court over patent use.
These companies do not oppose the sale of these patents they are just seeking that the language of the proposed sale will protect the companies already using the Kodak patents. The language of the current sale does not protect these companies from changes in their patent agreement.
Kodak has been trying to sell the patents for a year and a half, at one time for an estimated $2.5 billion. It wasn’t until December that Kodak decided to take a smaller deal which will provide them with cash and capital to get them out of bankruptcy.