14 DAY TRIAL // Embroiled in a patent dispute with Apple, Kodak recently filed for bankruptcy, but Apple has asked the court to bar Kodak from obtaining loans, arguing that the disputed patents actually belong to them.
Submitted to the US Bankruptcy Court in the Southern District of New York last week, the filing reveals that Kodak is seeking authority to “enter into a $950 million postpetition financing facility secured by security interests in and liens upon substantially all of Kodak’s assets, including certain patents that are subject to ongoing patent ownership and patent infringement disputes between Kodak and Apple.”
AppleInsider points out to a passage where Apple expressly notes that the spat involves “pioneering work on digital camera and imaging technology and related hardware, software, and user and communication interfaces” from the early 1990s, when Apple teamed with Kodak “to explore how the two companies could work together on various projects including commercialization of Apple’s digital cameras.”
According to Apple, “…through this collaboration, Apple disclosed the architecture for its confidential digital camera technology to Kodak subject to various non-disclosure agreements, which also provided that any improvements Kodak made to Apple’s disclosures remain the property of Apple.”
To enforce its point of view, Apple says Kodak was “was the leader in film-based cameras at the time”, and that in 1994, Apple rolled out the QuickTake 100, a camera touted by Time magazine as “the first consumer digital camera”. It was among the “100 greatest and most influential gadgets from 1923 to the present,” the magazine is quoted as saying.
Earlier this month, Kodak issued a complaint to the International Trade Commission (ITC) claiming that Apple’s smartphones and tablets were infringing patents related to technology for transmitting images. HTC, the Taiwan-based gadget maker, is also targeted by the suit.