Apple, Google, and Samsung Teaming Up in Effort to Acquire Kodak Patents

Following last month's report that Apple and Google were heading up separate consortiums bidding to obtain Kodak's portfolio of digital imaging patents, The Wall Street Journal now reports that the two camps may surprisingly be joining the same team. The negotiations are reportedly seeing Apple joining forces with its courtroom foes Samsung and HTC, as well as smartphone platform rival Google, in an effort to obtain the patents for a price well below that sought by Kodak.

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The bidding group brings together a raft of strange bedfellows. It includes Apple Inc. and Google Inc., fierce competitors in the global smartphone market. It also includes Intellectual Ventures Management LLC, which buys up patents to seek licensing revenue and increasinglyis sad to see a company like Kodak go under. They were kings when I was growing up.

The reason Kodak is a shell of it's former self today is because they stuck with film for too long. The funny thing is they invented the digital camera and if they would have thrown everything they had into digital and moved quicker they could have been a force to be reckoned with today. Instead they kept milking film for as long as they could and in the end everyone else ran off with the digital technology.

Kodak will emerge from bankruptcy as a small company with a focus on printing. I predict soon after they emerge they will be purchased by a much larger technology company and that will be it