Hard-up Kodak stalls crown jewels sell-off to milk bidders

Kodak, the poor-as-a-church-mouse photo biz, has decided to keep its patent auction fundraiser going for a while as it chats up bidders. The firm, which filed for bankruptcy protection in January, is selling off its portfolio of digital imaging technology, containing some 1,100 patents, to pay off its creditors and reinvent …

[Anonymous Coward]

Just a thought

But now that technology is a bigger if not the biggest part of life, intersecting all facets then maybe some of these patents could be given free.

Do we actually need to feed the patent lawyers any more?

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Just a thought

Sadly yes, because if only one person gies them away for free then another party will still abuse it. Unless all patents are free / cheap it just winds up with one party screwing over the other.

Look at the value of frand as an example. Frand patents are worth pittence despite how essential they are. Yet you have fairly worthless patents being licensed out for insane sums. Work that one out.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Just a thought

What you don't get is that FRAND patents would not be essential at all if they weren't licensed under FRAND terms.

No standards body would touch them and no one would make products using them.

[g e]

So...

Apple and MS to go two's up on the purchase now they have a newly found common hatred of Google & Amazon love for each other?

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: So...

Perhaps MS and Apple wouldn't need to if Google competed fairly by changing a proper licence fee for their software instead of giving it away and then eventually monetising it in the future (once they have the competition killed off).

[Gav]

Cellphones killed the cellulose star.

Scary to think that Kodak produced the first digital camera in 1975 (yes, Seventy Five) but then killed it because of concerns of what it would do to their photo film business, something they had a near monopoly on at the time.

Talk about massive blunders. They could have had the market sewn up all over again for another 50 years.

[Steve Todd]

Re: Cellphones killed the cellulose star.

The technology really wasn't there to support digital cameras until the mid to late '90s, never mind 1975. You need cheap, fast processors and large, cheap storage. Look at when digital cameras started to take off.

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

Re: Cellphones killed the cellulose star.

Even then Kodak made the best CCDs but didn't want to damage their film business.

Ironically they still make the best colour CCDs now that almost everyone has stopped using them.

[Flocke Kroes]

Mouse income

Has anyone seen any research into mouse wealth, and if mouse income or savings vary according to residence type? Is there any evidence that church mice are any less well off than mice living in a shop or school?

[Tom 38]

Re: Mouse income

I'm as poor as a church mouse, that's just had an enormous tax bill on the very day his wife ran off with another mouse, taking all the cheese.

[Dan Paul]

Not the only blunder by Kodak

It is truly too bad that Kodak did not recognize the value of all of it's R&D work. This is something that Kodak's management missed big time as their brain trust was wildly undervalued. I dare say those people could think up more stuff in a few days than most could in a lifetime. Xerox missed the boat as well.

Now Kodak is a dried up husk of it's former self and we have their management to blame.

BTW since most movie production companies are no longer using film and going all digital, you'll be sad to hear that most art theaters and small movie houses will be going out of business soon.

There will be no first run films left to fill their projectors and Digital projectors are way beyond the means of the small theaters

[Anonymous Coward]

"This is something that Kodak's management missed big time as their brain trust was wildly undervalued."

I think you meant "their brains were wildly underused" or "they had shit for brains"; they had the best known brand in photography, a head start on a lot of key technology and good scientists and engineers but they still bankrupted the company!