post Wednesday September 19, 2012
The Eastman Kodak Company announced in August to sell its Legacy Film units and focus on commercial printing services as part of its plan to emerge from bankruptcy protection. The company planned to sell roughly 1,100 digital imaging patents, valued around $2.6 billion. However, Reuters reports that the bids that Kodak received were far below expectation, including bids under $500 million from prospective buyers such as Apple and Google.
According to Reuters’ report last Friday, Kodak revealed that it may abandon the efforts to sell the portfolio at auction, but instead setting up a new licensing company for the patents “as a source of recovery for creditors” in its bankruptcy case. It is reported that in a filing with the U.S. bankruptcy court in Manhattan, Kodak and its affiliates “are continuing to explore other alternatives with respect to the digital imaging patent assets, and their intellectual property more broadly, and may not reach acceptable terms with parties via the auction process”. While the sale talks remain ongoing, the company has not decided whether to sell or to license the patents, according to Krista Gleason, a Kodak spokeswoman.
The final hearing for the sale is scheduled on September 19th following three adjournments.
Source: IAM Magazine, Reuters
Image courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net
