Kodak’s hopes to get Apple and RIM on the ropes with some patent infringement claims have been smashasized into little pieces by ITC judge Thomas Pender, who essentially told Kodak to cram it. The once-upon-a-time giant of the photography world, which for two years has been trying to bring patent infringement claims against the two tech companies, filed for bankruptcy protection in January. Generally regarded by pundits as a “Hail Mary” attempt to scrape some money together, Kodak was seeking $1B for damages, but Pender ruled the patent that was the basis of their claim to be invalid. The New York Times has a little info on the patent in question:
The disputed patent, which Kodak claims is used in all modern cameras, covers a feature that previews low-resolution versions of a moving image while recording still images at a high resolution. Higher resolution requires more processing power and storage space. Samsung Electronics and LG Electronics have already paid $964 million in settlements to Kodak for using the technology.
Interestingly, Pender said the particular aspect of the patent that was pivotal to this case was “covered an obvious variation of earlier inventions,” and that, if it were actually valid, BlackBerry devices and the Apple iPhone 3G would infringe it, while the iPhone 3GS and iPhone 4 wouldn’t (presumably, this would also cover the 4S).
Source: New York Times
