Kodak patent sale approved by Judge: Apple, Google to pay $527 million
Despite hammering out the details late last year, Kodak still had to wait for the Bankruptcy court to greenlight its big patent sale. Today, that happened: Judge Allan Gropper has approved the $527 million deal between Kodak, Apple and Google -- giving the floundering photo company final permission to offload more than 1,000 imaging patents. Kodak originally valued its collection of IP at over $2 billion, which Gropper deemed a bit high. Despite hoping for a higher payout, Kodak's attorney admits the deal is probably the best it could have hoped for, explaining that the $525 million the company will collect in the agreement will give it some "patent peace." Apple and Google, once rivals for Kodak's intellectual property, struck a deal to bid on the patents together -- lowering their respective costs and keeping the bid war out of the courts. Less litigation sounds good to us, even if it's only for a little while. Check out Bloomberg's report at the adjacent source link for more info.
