Kodak sells $525M patent portfolio to consortiums led by Apple & Google
Kodak on Wednesday announced it has sold its collection of digital imaging patents for $525 million to two groups led separately by Apple and Google.
A total of 12 intellectual property licensees including Apple and Google were organized by Intellectual Ventures and RPX Corporation. Per the terms of the deal, each licensee will receive rights with respect to Kodak's digital imaging patent portfolio and other intellectual property.
Apple and Microsoft backed the Intellectual Ventures bid, while RPX Corporation had the support of Google, LG and HTC. Other licensees included in the final deal are Samsung, Facebook, Adobe, and Amazon.

The transaction is one of the key measures in Kodak's restructuring as the company emerges from Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Kodak now expects to successfully emerge in the first half of 2013.
"This monetization of patents is another major milestone toward successful emergence,? said Kodak Chief Executive Antonio M. Perez. "Our progress has accelerated over the past several weeks as we prepare to emerge as a strong, sustainable company. This proposed transaction enables Kodak to repay a substantial amount of our initial DIP loan, satisfy a key condition for our new financing facility, and position our Commercial Imaging business for further growth and success."
The final sale price is much lower than the $2.6 billion Kodak initially expected to receive for its patent portfolio. Initial bids were said to be worth less than $250 million.
Kodak's $793 million loan package required the company fetch at least $500 million for its patent portfolio. The company was granted an extension < ahref="http://appleinsider.com/articles/12/11/14/apple-google-remain-in-talks-to-buy-kodak-patents">this fall to work out a deal that would meet those terms after Kodak had trouble finalizing deals with a large number of hopeful buyers.
Kodak plans to emerge from bankruptcy with a new look that will limit its presence in the consumer business, instead focusing on commercial imaging.
A total of 12 intellectual property licensees including Apple and Google were organized by Intellectual Ventures and RPX Corporation. Per the terms of the deal, each licensee will receive rights with respect to Kodak's digital imaging patent portfolio and other intellectual property.
Apple and Microsoft backed the Intellectual Ventures bid, while RPX Corporation had the support of Google, LG and HTC. Other licensees included in the final deal are Samsung, Facebook, Adobe, and Amazon.

The transaction is one of the key measures in Kodak's restructuring as the company emerges from Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Kodak now expects to successfully emerge in the first half of 2013.
"This monetization of patents is another major milestone toward successful emergence,? said Kodak Chief Executive Antonio M. Perez. "Our progress has accelerated over the past several weeks as we prepare to emerge as a strong, sustainable company. This proposed transaction enables Kodak to repay a substantial amount of our initial DIP loan, satisfy a key condition for our new financing facility, and position our Commercial Imaging business for further growth and success."
The final sale price is much lower than the $2.6 billion Kodak initially expected to receive for its patent portfolio. Initial bids were said to be worth less than $250 million.
Kodak's $793 million loan package required the company fetch at least $500 million for its patent portfolio. The company was granted an extension < ahref="http://appleinsider.com/articles/12/11/14/apple-google-remain-in-talks-to-buy-kodak-patents">this fall to work out a deal that would meet those terms after Kodak had trouble finalizing deals with a large number of hopeful buyers.
Kodak plans to emerge from bankruptcy with a new look that will limit its presence in the consumer business, instead focusing on commercial imaging.
Comments
Quote:
Originally Posted by Rot'nApple
SNAP!... (that was a polaroid camera taking a picture)
Of course you know Kodak had absolutely nothing to do with Polaroid...?
Quote:
Originally Posted by TheBum
The patent trolls have pushed the industry into these sorts of consortia. It's just a big game of keep-away.
Bingo. Spot on.
...sorry.. I'm a banker.. this drives me insane.
Nothing except the 1985 patent lawsuit which drove Kodak out of the instant camera business.
Nice to see them playing nice.
Quote:
Originally Posted by MacVertigo
This might be a stupid comment.. but it drives me insane. Saying $525M means 525,000. Not million. The correct use of the roman numeral would be $525MM.
...sorry.. I'm a banker.. this drives me insane.
Except that to the average person it means Million. The number is not written in Roman Numerals, why should the suffix be in that system?
Good for Kodak.
I wish them well.
They are done. Time told.;)
Quote:
Originally Posted by MacVertigo
This might be a stupid comment.. but it drives me insane. Saying $525M means 525,000. Not million. The correct use of the roman numeral would be $525MM.
...sorry.. I'm a banker.. this drives me insane.
Ha... it's not a roman numeral. It's just an abbreviation of "million".
Originally Posted by MacVertigo
This might be a stupid comment.. but it drives me insane. Saying $525M means 525,000. Not million. The correct use of the roman numeral would be $525MM.
...sorry.. I'm a banker.. this drives me insane.
What drives me insane is that bankers think "M" means "thousand" when in every other modern numerical use it means million. When I see "MM", I think trillion, unless it's in movie credits.
Originally Posted by earthtoandy
Ha... it's not a roman numeral. It's just an abbreviation of "million".
Why, when 'million' only has one M?
So does this deal mean BOTH buying groups are licensed for ALL the patents, or does the Apple group get some patents and the Google group gets others?
$525 M means $525 million and you know it does. There is not other context to assume anything else. What drives you insane is that you want all things to be the same everywhere. Do you get upset when someone says that salt on ice melts it? Of course not, you're a banker but even if you understood chemistry it would be silly to take offense to the difference between dissolving v. melting outside of the proper, pedantic use of the term where it actually makes a difference.
1) The Latin mille means thousand and since thousand times thousand equal a million it could be have been brought about as a simple shorthand.
2) I've never once heard that the M is a reference to the Roman numeral. I was taught it was an abbreviation for the Latin-based word for 1000, as previously mentioned. Doesn't it seem odd that banking, of all professions, would intermingle Arabic and Roman numbers together? Mixing Arabic numbers with the abbreviations of words makes sense, but not appending a Roman numeral at the end. I wonder what other Roman numerals get pasted on the back of Arabic numerals.
Originally Posted by SolipsismX
1) The Latin mille means thousand and since thousand times thousand equal a million it could be have been brought about a simple shorthand.
2) I've heard once heard that the M is a reference to the Roman numeral. I was taught it was an abbreviation for the Latin-based word for 1000, as previously mentioned. Doesn't it seem odd that banking, of all professions, would intermingle Arabic and Roman numbers together? Mixing Arabic numbers with the abbreviations of words makes sense, but not appending a Roman numeral at the end. I wonder what other Roman numerals get pasted on the back of Arabic numerals.
That make sense; I definitely get how the single M comes from the roman numeral, and that'd be fine… if the other numbers were also roman numerals.
Also, if it's based on the roman numeral, MM is 2,000, not million. So "525 2,000". Or, "525 2,000s" (525 two thousands), meaning 1,050,000.
You should receive the $64k prize from Ai. (K=kilo)
And so it transpires that the global economic collapse was due to bankers having no understanding of basic mathematical/scientific notation.
According to Wikipedia 'K' means 151 or 250 in Roman numerals.
Quote:
Originally Posted by MacVertigo
This might be a stupid comment.. but it drives me insane. Saying $525M means 525,000. Not million. The correct use of the roman numeral would be $525MM.
...sorry.. I'm a banker.. this drives me insane.
You need to relax.
M is "mega" in SI lingo.
MM is the financial abbreviation, meaning 1000x1000.
This is a monetary figure of $525,000,000, so from a financial context, MM is correct, but as previously mentioned, saying $525M is not incorrect, just a different unit for the same thing.