Brother is a multinational electronics and electrical equipment company based in Japan that has acquired Kodak’s imaging business for $210 million in cash. Brother will be assuming deferred service revenue liabilities of the business, which totaled around $67 million as of December 31, 2012.
When Shutterfly acquired Kodak’s online Gallery photo business for $23.8 million last year, part of the agreement was that Kodak agreed not to set up a duplicate business. However there is a Kodak mobile application that lets users buy photo albums from pictures that are stored on Facebook called “My Kodak Moments.” As a result, Shutterfly filed a complaint with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Manhattan claiming that Kodak is violating the sales agreement by setting up a competing business.
Eastman Kodak Company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy around a year ago. The company sold off around 1,000 of their digital imaging patents last month. U.S. Bankruptcy Court Judge Allan Gropper of the Southern District of New York has approved Kodak’s $844 million financing led by Centerbridge Partners LP.
Kodak has sold around $525 million worth of patents to a consortium of companies known as Intellectual Ventures and RPX Corporation. Intellectual Ventures represents a portfolio of patents used by Apple and RPX represents a portfolio of patents for Google. The sale of the patents will help Kodak with the bankruptcy restructuring process. Kodak has been trying to sell the patents for a while and at one point they claimed Apple was intervening with the process.
Apple and Google have jointly bid on 1,100 patents that are being auctioned by Kodak. “Apple and Google learned a lesson from the Nortel’s auction. They have decided to come together in this process to reduce the cost of purchasing the Kodak patents, while meeting their business needs,” stated IP Offerings president Richard Ehrlickman. Apple and Google has faced numerous lawsuits around the iOS and Android operating systems.
As part of a massive restructure, Eastman Kodak is laying off 1,000 additional workers by the end of 2012. Kodak may have to extend those job losses before the end of the year to remain in business. About 30 years ago Kodak was employing around 145,000 employees and now that number has fallen to around 14,700. Kodak CFO Antoinette McCorvey and Kodak COO Philip Faraci recently exited the company. Kodak president Antonio Perez said:
Eastman Kodak is preparing to sell off their film business to help revive some of their fortunes. The company has also put up their patent portfolio, online gallery, photo kiosk business, commercial scanning, and theme park businesses for sale. Kodak needs to raise $660 million to pay back creditors before they can emerge from bankruptcy. [Engadget]
Apple and Google both want to buy Kodak’s patents, which are up for auction according to The Wall Street Journal. Kodak has a portfolio of 1,100 patents in the auction. Apple has partnered with Microsoft and Intellectual Ventures to make a bid on the patents. Google partnered with Samsung, HTC, LG, and RPX to make a bid on the patents. Kodak has filed patent lawsuits against various companies including Apple over patents. Yesterday Apple lost a bid to transfer the Kodak patent lawsuit outside of a bankruptcy court.
