Kodak Files Motion to Clear Way for Competitive Auction of Patents

From DailyTech: Eastman Kodak Company is in bad financial shape and entered bankruptcy in January to protect itself from creditors. Back in March, Kodak sold off some of its assets for the Gallery Online Photo services to Shutterfly. Kodak continues to hope that it can emerge from bankruptcy and move forward with its business.

Kodak is looking to sell off two patent portfolios that deal with digital imaging and manipulation of images. Kodak reportedly generates about $3 billion in licensing for these patent portfolios. Major smartphone makers are licensing some of these patents including Samsung, LG, Motorola, and Nokia. Kodak has been in court suing Apple, HTC, and RIM for violating patents it holds, but so far hasn’t had any success.

Kodak has now filed a motion seeking court approval of bidding procedures for the bankruptcy auction for patents in its Digital Capture and Kodak Imaging Systems and Services (KISS) portfolios. These patent portfolios have over 1,100 patents inside and are broken into two sections with different characteristics likely to lure different buyers.

One of the patent portfolios is called the Digital Capture Portfolio and has 700 patents inside covering key aspects of image capturing, processing, and transmission technologies. Multifunction devices, digital cameras, smartphones, and tablets use these patents.

The KISS Portfolio has over 400 patents that cover technologies for image analysis, manipulation, tagging, and network-based services for the storage, access, and fulfillment of imaging.

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