Kodak Loses Patent Lawsuit Against Apple and RIM Eastman Kodak has lost its patent case against Apple and Research in Motion over digital image-preview technology in a ruling that could hurt the company's efforts to get a high price for its patents. Kodak said it would appeal. The United States International Trade Commission said late last week that it had upheld a judge's findings that neither Apple nor RIM violated Kodak's rights in the patent. The commission said it agreed with the judge that the patent claim was invalid. Its reasons for the decision will be released once both sides have a chance to redact confidential information. Kodak has been seeking to force Apple and RIM to pay licensing fees and bolster the value of patents Kodak intends to sell. Kodak said in a court filing that Apple owed more than $1 billion in royalties. The dispute has dragged on for about 30 months, almost twice as long as a typical trade commission case. The patent's validity "has been upheld in previous litigation at the I.T.C., and was affirmed by the U.S. Patent and Trade Office," Chris Veronda, a spokesman for Kodak, said in a statement. We are confident that its validity will ultimately be upheld. Kristin Huguet, a spokeswoman for Apple, said the company had no comment. The patent in the case is in one of two portfolios Kodak is selling, which may be its most valuable assets. One group includes patents for digital-capture technology and the other covers imaging systems and services. Kodak said it had generated more than $3 billion by licensing the digital-imaging patents to users including Samsung Electronics, LG Electronics and Nokia. Kodak, which sought Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in January, filed the case in January 2010. The dispute has dragged on because the original judge for the case retired. Apple, based in Cupertino, Calif., has claimed it is the true owner of the image-preview idea and other Kodak patents because of a research agreement between the companies in the 1990s. That contention was rejected in the trade commission case and is pending in a separate lawsuit. Kodak's chief executive, Antonio Perez, said in March that a victory at the trade commission could force a settlement that would bring the company $1 billion. Since then, Kodak said in a bankruptcy filing, potential damages have continued to rise. Apple and RIM both deny infringing on the patent and challenge its validity. Judge Thomas Pender of the trade commission said in May that the patent was invalid because it was an obvious variation of earlier work by others related to image processing. The judge said that, if the patent were valid, Apple's iPhone 3G and RIM's BlackBerry phones would infringe on it, while the iPhone 3GS and iPhone 4 would not. The patented feature, which Kodak claims is used in all modern cameras, saves energy by previewing low-resolution versions of a moving image while recording still images at a high resolution. Judge Pender said it would have been obvious in light of earlier inventions related to image processing. Kodak has another case against Apple at the trade commission involving different patents. That case is scheduled for trial in February.