Kodak Sues HTC and Apple

Kodak's Future... by Frosty+Piss · 2012-01-11 03:58 · 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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Re:Kodak's Future... by jank1887 · 2012-01-11 04:04 · Score: 4, Insightful

businessweek article doesn't really detail the patents in question. 'previewing an image'. was 'on a camera' the re-patent everything catchphrase that only Kodak thought of? after generating the image, it's a computer file. it's on a really poor computer. the computer displays the image on a screen, as has been done for decades. transmission of images? again, after generation, its a file. sending a file via some already established protocol shouldn't be patentable for some types of files.
of course, I'm assuming it's all software, not hardware. If anyone knows the patents in question, it would be interesting to see the claims.
Re:Kodak's Future... by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · 2012-01-11 04:19 · 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.
Re:Kodak's Future... by alen · 2012-01-11 04:20 · 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
Re:Kodak's Future... by north.coaster · 2012-01-11 04:32 · Score: 2

Kodak is currently trying to sell a large number of it's imaging patents. Maybe they see this lawsuit as a way to motivate one of the defendants to buy these patents. Or maybe they see this as a way to increase the worth of those patents.
Re:Kodak's Future... by russotto · 2012-01-11 04:41 · Score: 4, Insightful

the camera screens have smaller resolutions than the photo so you will need an algorithm to downgrade the image, that part is patentable
Or would be, if downscaling algorithms hadn't been known for decades. Of course, if you write "downscaling...on a mobile device", that's a new patent. Then you can write dependent claims like
"method of claim X, where the downscaling is nearest-neighbor interpolation"
"method of claim X, where the downscaling is bilinear interpolation"
"method of claim X, where different downscaling methods are used on the luma and chroma components"
(stop me if you've heard all this before)
Re:Kodak's Future... by jo_ham · 2012-01-11 04:49 · Score: 2

Or push up the perceived value of their assets for a potential buyer.
Re:Kodak's Future... by Roonster · 2012-01-11 04:53 · Score: 2

..snipped... 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.
Yes, they sold off most of their sustainable viable technologies. See Eastman Chemicals for example.
Re:Kodak's Future... by postbigbang · 2012-01-11 05:05 · Score: 2

Not quite true. There were lots of early leaders using CCD devices to produce still images; some of them went to tape, others to primitive onboard storage. Sony even used a floppy disk drive at one point.
There may be a lot of prior art to some of the claims that invalidate them, but Kodak did do a lot of pioneering research in the area. The usual process is to have the defendents claim that the patents aren't legal, and otherwise them invalidated. Barring that, they'll try to get the complaint squashed on other grounds. Barring that, they'll try to settle for the least painful method, which might include exchanging various "rights" or portfolios of "rights" which allows Kodak to use the defendents property. In the worst case, there's a hideous judgment, which will then be appealed. IANAL, but don't be so sure Kodak invented everything they claim.

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Re:Kodak's Future... by delinear · 2012-01-11 05:31 · Score: 3, Insightful

You say that as though coming up with good original ideas and bringing them to market is the easy bit. That's kind of what the whole patent process should be there to protect, otherwise it's almost always better to be second to market, let some other chump do all the costly research and development, then you just bring out a shinier version of their product based on initial feedback. Companies that come up with ideas and put them into production are far more useful than companies who have zero interest in bringing a product to market and just patent the patently obvious so they can reap the benefits in licensing deals/court cases.
Re:Kodak's Future... by tlhIngan · 2012-01-11 05:34 · Score: 2

Perhaps this gives us a clue about KodakÃ(TM)s future plans to be solvent: Patent Troll? They have already sued Apple and RIM recently...
Well, they're currently offering their patent portfolio for sale, so I'm guessing it's a general sales tactic.
Of course, it also means a REAL patent troll may come about and pick it up. Or perhaps Apple may buy the portfolio and extract money from everyone. Or Google. Or Microsoft.
Re:Kodak's Future... by Asmodae · 2012-01-11 05:35 · Score: 5, Informative

If I recall correctly it had more to do with some arbitrary and insane insistence on 'Consumer Imaging' being the business focus, which is why you got cheap consumer cameras (easy share), printer docs (with attempts to cash in on printer paper consumables), but little pro-sumer stuff, and the occasional/rare super high-end imagers/gear (like those used in telescopes, etc).
This is also why they sold off/spun off their profitable medical imaging groups, chemicals group, and they've tried to get rid of their profitable Document Imaging group (high-end, high-speed document scanners) several times. They've been constantly trying to push themselves into the most difficult and price-competitive market possible, cheapo consumer cameras. I think the ultimate goal was to maintain some kind of grasp of the photo printing business as their cash cow with consumable manufacturing/selling. To be fair, they still do a good job printing pictures, but people don't really want/need to do that anymore with rare exceptions. And people that still do prints do it in-house or have local labs that do the work.
Re:Kodak's Future... by WankerWeasel · 2012-01-11 05:49 · 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
Re:Kodak's Future... by viperidaenz · 2012-01-11 07:01 · Score: 2

Their solvent business is very solvent. Its called Eastman Chemical
Re:Kodak's Future... by Smurf · 2012-01-11 07:15 · Score: 4, Informative

1920*1080 which is the highest consumer resolution available is around 2MP
Apple's Thunderbolt Display (and the 27" Cinema Display before it) is 2560x1440.
Dell's 27" U2711 has the same resolution (I think they may be using the same panel), and the 30" U3011 is 2560x1600.

2560*1600 which is the highest resolution available for individual displays in the market is around 4MP
The Eizo RadiForce LS560W is 3840x2160. The RX840 is 4096x2160. And although most people would not want a monochrome monitor, you can get them all the way to at least 4096x2560, like the GX1030. And that is just sticking to Eizo monitors, I didn't check other high end brands.
I get your point, but your numbers are quite off

Death Rattle by Anonymous Coward · 2012-01-11 03:59 · Score: 2, Insightful

Yesterday on the news it was about Kodak going bankrupt, now they are suing other company's as a last ditch effort. This is a death rattle, nothing more.

Re:Death Rattle by Gideon+Wells · 2012-01-11 04:02 · Score: 2

Death rattle, but could be an annoying one. Three scenarios:
1) Last ditch effort to survive.
2) Start lawsuits, adds potential value due to potential win/settlement.
3) They are already going down, already going bankrupt, maybe they can drag down some of those who helped put them in this spot in the process.

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Re:Death Rattle by gstoddart · 2012-01-11 04:19 · Score: 4, Informative

maybe they can drag down some of those who helped put them in this spot in the process
I'm sorry, but only Kodak put Kodak into this spot ... they've staunchly refused/failed to move forward, have rested on their laurels while the industry changed around them ... and to be honest, they've made abysmally low quality consumer stuff for years.
My wife's parents now have their second Kodak camera ... truthfully, it's a POS, but they don't use it much and is simple for them to use. We bought a photo printer that died in a few weeks. The one we returned it for died a few weeks after that. Utter garbage.
I have no sympathy for Kodak. I mourned the loss of Kodachrome, but that was more nostalgia. Seriously, Kodak hasn't made anything of value in years ... and I currently own something like 5 or 6 cameras, so it's not like I'm not in the market for things you'd think they'd be making.
This is just the dying throws of a company who has failed to remain relevant in a changing environment.

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Re:Death Rattle by roman_mir · 2012-01-11 04:52 · Score: 2, Insightful

Not true at all, not when you have so called 'anti-trust' legislation thrown against you by the government.
I am not saying that Kodak would have survived for sure if government wasn't attacking it earlier, but you can't say they were at fault for their business when government was heavily meddling with it.
It's similar enough with the government interfering with AT&T and T-Mobile. Gov't prevents the merger and later one or both companies will suffer enough damage that may put them out of business, but you will say: it's definitely their fault, they couldn't survive in the market. Well, how do you know that the merger would not have given them some sort of an edge that they need to survive?
You can't have government interfering with private businesses, private property with all these unconstitutional regulations and laws and taxes and counterfeiting and then say - these companies were definitely destined for failure or these entire markets were definitely destined for failure.
The only thing we know for sure is that when government interferes with market, it causes failure.

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Re:Death Rattle by Grave · 2012-01-11 05:09 · Score: 3, Insightful

I don't know, I'd bet Google would be willing to give Apple a run for their money on the Kodak patents, given the patent acquisition spree they've been on recently.
Re:Death Rattle by Anonymous Coward · 2012-01-11 05:12 · Score: 2, Insightful

AT&T merging with T-Mobile is extremely bad for the consumer, and a large number of employees within both companies. The only people it benefits are the major shareholders, because they'll be able to manipulate the market. This has absolutely nothing to do with Kodak repeatedly ignoring where digital photography was going, and then hiding their heads in the sand as the world ignored them.
Kodak have had the tech, the knowledge and the brand name to do well. They fucked up. They should be used as an example of what happens to big players when the market moves and stuffy old farts choose to ignore every warning sign there is.
Re:Death Rattle by gstoddart · 2012-01-11 05:13 · Score: 4, Insightful

Not true at all, not when you have so called 'anti-trust' legislation thrown against you by the government
I've read that article ... and, quite honestly, it sounds like a legitimate applilcation of anti-trust legistlation ...

Kodak also asked the Court to rule that the market for a single brand of a product or service -- such as its own replacement parts -- can never be a "market" for assessing monopoly behavior under the Sherman Act.
"We disagree," Justice Blackmun said, adding that "the relevant market for antitrust purposes is determined by the choices available to Kodak equipment owners," who must use Kodak parts.
That's like saying that I can't legally have someone else service my car because GM has forbade it. It's my property, and I can employ who I like to repair it. GM doesn't have the right to restrict that, and neither did Kodak

The only thing we know for sure is that when government interferes with market, it causes failure.
Blah blah blah ... corporations would fuck us all over if someone didn't keep an eye on them. Don't believe me? Go feed your children some melamine laced baby formula.
The all wonderful free market is a philosophical ideal to some people ... to the rest of us, it's a mechanism which if not controlled will lead to horribly bad results. And, quite frankly, even with controls it does.
But, I can tell that you kneel at the altar and think it's infallible ... so, whatever ... I completely disagree with you.

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Re:Death Rattle by gstoddart · 2012-01-11 06:11 · Score: 3, Insightful

In free market monopolies don't exist, only economies of scale, only companies that provide good product at good price, otherwise others enter the market with new ideas, tech and better prices.
See, there never has been what you term a truly free market ... so anytime someone says that is how it works, I am forced to conclude you're telling me about your religion -- there's no proof of it, only your assertion. You believe it, but I don't believe for a minute it's the natural 'fact' you seem to.
Name one market that has ever existed in the world that was truly free, and didn't more or less devolve into the strong screwing over the weak? There have always been governments and rules, and people have always tried to be the only game in town.
I think your free market is a myth, and I think the lovely outcomes people ascribe to it are pure fantasy with no real evidence.

What I do know is that governments interfere with private individuals making private decisions and they end up destroying the markets.
What I know is that the markets are inherently flawed, don't produce the optimal results people like you claim they do, and would have been abused by people trying to gain the upper hand. And they always have.
They don't naturally arrive at optimal solutions, the freedom to choose with good information never materializes, and some greedy bastard will always lie, cheat, steal, and resort to violence to gain an upper hand ... but you seem to think that's the optimal method of how such things work.
Me, I think it's just glorified anarchy that's been elevated to a status where people worship it as if it was the most morally perfect outcome we could ever hope for -- if you apply the morality of a free market to a society, you get a very bleak future of selfish behavior and sacrificing every body else for your own gain. 'Enlightened self interest' translates into "fuck everyone else, give me mine".

Of-course governments created the moral hazard by removing legal liability from corporations
That may be the only point we agree on ... of course, I don't think the solution is to remove the regulations. I think it's to remove the freedom from liability they enjoy now.
If we magically went to an unregulated, free market tomorrow ... I'm betting it would take centuries (if at all) to reach any form of equilibrium in which the behavior of companies was regulated by the market. And, since no such economy has ever existed for that long, you will get the exact opposite results that people claim that system would produce.

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Re:Death Rattle by gstoddart · 2012-01-11 06:55 · Score: 3, Insightful

Take the banking fiasco. FDIC! Federal insurance that says that if you put your money in the bank we guarantee that you are not going to lose it.
Take away that insurance and people are going to behave differently.
With it banks can not compete on safety. They can only compete on rates and free stuff. Is it surprising what we got?
Without the FDIC banks could compete on safety of your money. Those that do not want safety can not have it.
And your lack of understanding of why FDIC exists in the first place doesn't make you correct.
See, after the Great Depression when banks basically gambled away the money people deposited, people figured out that without some controls and regulations, it would just happen again.
Unfortunately, starting with Reagan and going forward, people gradually removed the regulations on the banking industry. So, the junk debt which got passed off as AAA became everyone else's problem -- not just the people who had knowingly given risky debt.
So, the exact same market failure occurred in the 30's as recently .... an unregulated banking industry is basically a ponzi scheme, precisely because all the market is interested in doing is maximizing short term profit, and making sure other people carry the risk. It is just an incentive to rip people off -- essentially the whole world paid for a bunch of greedy American banks to foist off their bad debt while pretending it was secured/safe debt. It was essentially like kiting checks, only on a global scale.
A free market would never create a safer banking system ... you believe that, I'm sure ... but there is no actual evidence to believe that this wonderful unicorn you think of as the market arrives at good solutions. In fact, it's hard not to reach the opposite conclusion.
Citing an example of why the regulations were put there in the first place, and showing why the removal of them led to the same abysmal failure isn't successfully defending your point ... it's using an example of failure to attempt to prove something else. That's like saying that murder laws don't serve any purpose, and then showing the murder rate would go up if you didn't have a law against it.

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Re:Death Rattle by roman_mir · 2012-01-11 07:01 · Score: 2

See, there never has been what you term a truly free market

- I never said there needs to be a 'truly free market', there are degrees of freedom, and not having Patents/Copyrights/DMCA/SOPA/PIPA, etc. is a good enough DEGREE of freedom for innovation and inventions and for a thriving technological culture to exist.
Of-course then there are other things, it would be good for example not to have currency counterfeiting, labor price setting, insane laws and regulations created by unelected, unauthorised offices, various wrong-headed social agenda that creates other barriers to entry and raises cost of doing business, the entire concept of income/payroll/corporate taxes. But you see, USA used to have NONE of this for half a century where it did most of what lifted it from a pre-industrial to a real industrial country with huge productive output that turned it into the largest creditor nation, with very strong domestic economy.
That's not what you have now at all. I just posted a journal entry on a Chinese company constructing a building in 360 hours. They are using innovative technology, they are manufacturing entire floors and panels on factories and are assembling entire building on site by simply putting "lego" like blocks together.
You couldn't do an EPA environmental report in USA in the amount of time it took them to run the entire project. You couldn't get a building permit in that time. You couldn't do anything in USA in that time.
So that's where China is today - where USA used to be 100 years back - they are innovating, they are inventing, they are manufacturing, they are finding new efficiencies and this pushes engineering and basic science and education forward.
USA on the other hand has EPA and FDA and FCC and FAA and FBI and CIA and FDIC and IRS and SS and Medicare and all the union support, and all the other departments and agencies and government officials, with or without guns, all in unions. They wouldn't let you run a building construction that quick if you could.
So you see, that's an example of a DEGREE of FREEDOM, China has more than USA does.

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Heh... in the 90s... by eno2001 · 2012-01-11 04:05 · Score: 2

...Apple and Kodak were the first two companies out of the gate with the very first consumer level digital cameras.

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Re:Heh... in the 90s... by RyuuzakiTetsuya · 2012-01-11 04:11 · Score: 3, Informative

And the QuickTake 100 and 150 were both rebranded Kodak hardware.

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Re:Heh... in the 90s... by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · 2012-01-11 04:20 · Score: 3, Funny

Kodak is the Xerox of digital imaging.

No worries, Apple has an ace in the hole by elrous0 · 2012-01-11 04:06 · Score: 5, Funny

Apple recently patented "methods of extracting monetary compensation by engaging in litigation over patent rights."

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The 'obviousness' test... by Assmasher · 2012-01-11 04:10 · Score: 2

How obvious do things have to be?

FFS, 90% of the patents you hear about are things that simply come from a software engineer implementing a feature the way just about any other software engineer would do it. It's "obvious" that this is a potential solution.

I can understand patenting things that seem to be game changers, real breakthroughs (some algorithmic work for example), but methods of previewing images? The Amazon 'one-click' patent? FFS, how that hasn't been "obvious"ed to death, I'll never know. Hmmm, do you think people like to do things easier or faster. What? Remember their default choices and offer them a "do the same sh** you did the last time I bought something" button? HOLY CRAP THAT IS GENIUS! Lol...

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Re:When you can't innovate, by demachina · 2012-01-11 04:13 · Score: 4, Informative

Kodak has been pretty capable on the innovation front. They pretty much invented the digital camera. Their problem has been the business execution to make money off their innovation.

Though of late they probably haven't been innovating so much. Their current CEO has made two failed attempts to become a printer company and a TV company which are two markets which are completely dominated by incumbents and they've been bleeding money throughout the attempt.

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Re:When you can't innovate, by Nursie · 2012-01-11 04:22 · Score: 4, Funny

The landlord says the rent is late, you may have to litigate

Don't worry, Beeeeeeeee Happy....

Re:Tired of this by mcgrew · 2012-01-11 04:24 · Score: 2

Copyright is different from patent

Indeed, both are fatally flawed, but in different ways. Copyrights are free, and cheap to register, and are easy to get, but they lasy WAY too long and carry way too many restrictions.

Patents, otoh, only last 20 years but they cost so much that you have to be rich to get one.

Imagine how technology would stagnate if patents lasted 95 years longer than their inventors? That's how art is stagnating. But patents could spur a lot more innovation if you or I could reasonably obtain them.

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Re:When you can't innovate, by Anonymous Coward · 2012-01-11 04:37 · Score: 2, Insightful

Kodak is far from being capable on the innovation front. They made the first digital camera in 1975 but they where not capable of making it into a practical useful consumer product for over thirty years. This is definitely not a prime example of innovation. On the contrary I would say.

There is a common misconception here at Slashdot.. by Frosty+Piss · 2012-01-11 04:56 · Score: 2

Yeah those aren't obvious *eye roll*

There is a common misconception here at Slashdot that doing something "obvious" makes the patent frivolous.

The issue usually *IS NOT* what end result is, but *HOW* the patented process does it.

There are all sorts of incredibly novel and innovative and not-so-obvious ways to do very obvious things.

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Re:"low quality" flatters them too much by Jerry+Atrick · 2012-01-11 05:04 · Score: 2

I bought a 5MP Kodak camera long ago as an upgrade from a Konica Minolta X20 (very tiny 3MP digicam - wife's still using it). Immediately discovered the highest quality settings on the Kodak were worse than the lowest quality settings on the X20, worse even comparing 3MP vs 5MP images. So badly compressed you could see the artefacts even on the camera LCD. Went back the same day.

Kodak were so intent on protecting their film business they never took digicams seriously and ruined their own business by crippling their own cameras. They deserve to die, no-one killed them, it was suicide.

Kodak is not a patent troll by voss · 2012-01-11 05:10 · Score: 3, Informative

It invented most of the stuff, and it licenses its patents to most everyone(some 30 companies at last count including LG Electronics, Motorola, Samsung Electronics and Nokia ). It just wants Apple and HTC to pay up. I would recommend they do because having a nice friendly little Kodak license your patents is better than having
a competitor acquire kodak. Also the company is using the patents in its own products.

Re:Kodak is not a patent troll by arkane1234 · 2012-01-11 05:53 · 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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Re:"low quality" flatters them too much by gstoddart · 2012-01-11 05:18 · Score: 3, Insightful

Kodak were so intent on protecting their film business they never took digicams seriously and ruined their own business by crippling their own cameras. They deserve to die, no-one killed them, it was suicide.

I think the word you want is hubris.

It wasn't suicide, it was stupidity and arrogance.

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The only way that anything's going to get made... by forkfail · 2012-01-11 05:36 · Score: 3, Insightful

... is to either tear down the patent system, or just allow monopolies/collusion.

Because otherwise, the way things are going, nobody will be able to manufacture anything given this circle of choke holds we seem to have.

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Re:There is a common misconception here at Slashdo by advocate_one · 2012-01-11 06:03 · Score: 2

and here you're completely INGNORING the issue that it's software that's been patented yet again when it SHOULD NOT BE PATENTABLE IN THE FSCKING FIRST PLACE...

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