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Kodak Sues HTC and Apple

Posted by Unknown on from the new-business-strategy dept.

alphadogg writes "Here we go again with mobile industry patent lawsuits: 'Struggling Eastman Kodak is alleging that Apple's and HTC's smartphones and tablets infringe on its digital imaging technology, and has filed a complaint and lawsuits with the U.S. International Trade Commission and the U.S. District Court for the Western District of New York. The complaint to the ITC claims that some of Apple's iPhones, iPads, and iPods, and HTC's smartphones and tablets, infringe Kodak patents related to technology for transmitting images. Kodak also alleges that HTC's smartphones infringe on a patent related to a method for previewing images, which is already the subject of pending actions against Apple.'"

5 of 177 comments (clear)

  1. Kodak's Future... by Frosty+Piss · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Perhaps this gives us a clue about Kodakâ(TM)s future plans to be solvent: Patent Troll? They have already sued Apple and RIM recently...

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    1. Re:Kodak's Future... by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Given that Kodak did substantial amounts of actually pioneering work in imaging(I'm sort of saddened that some bullshit about 'preview' was the best they could dredge up for some trolling) and then managed to do for digital cameras approximately what Xerox did for PCs, I suspect that shaking down the people who didn't reach deep into the mouth of victory and grasp hold of defeat will be what their patent portfolio ends up being used for...

      The thing that surprises me, a bit, about Kodak's fall from grace is that being a film titan, at their prime, involved substantial chemical manufacturing capacity and expertise. Was that non-transferrable to some other area of chemical production, or did they somehow get rid of their boring-but-solvent departments in some strange reorganization scheme? Same question would go for any departments involved in optics, industrial imaging, etc.

    2. Re:Kodak's Future... by alen · · Score: 4, Interesting

      the camera screens have smaller resolutions than the photo so you will need an algorithm to downgrade the image, that part is patentable. icloud does something similar where the photo stream images are lesser resolutions than the original. so i guess apple could have ripped them off if they used the same algorithm

    3. Re:Kodak's Future... by WankerWeasel · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Fast Company had an article last month about Kodak saying just that. The only way they're holding on is to sue others. They haven't innovated in years. The article also talked about how this guy in their labs invented a device that allowed you to take a picture and see it on a TV screen. They looked at it and said, who would want to take a picture and store it digitally? Throw that in the pile with all the other ideas we aren't going to pursue. Here is the article: http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/161/photography-digital-tech

  2. Re:Kodak is not a patent troll by arkane1234 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Are you seriously going to say (with a straight face, we'll have no giggling or chuckling) that transmitting a digital image by reading a configuration file to know where to put a file and then transmitting it to that location is considered innovative?
    Or how about previewing a picture? I mean.. these are ideas that were out since MS-DOS was around. Using the idea in another product is not innovation.

    If I invent a hovering wallet, do you think it's innovative if I patent how to open that wallet? It's the same kind of thing... so obvious.

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