Apple, Samsung And More, Team up to Buy Kodak Patents for $525 Million

Bloomberg reports the bankrupt Kodak finally agreed to secure its route out of bankruptcy by selling some of its digital-imaging patents for $525 million to a group led by Intellectual Ventures and RPX Corp.

As part of the deal, Intellectual Ventures will put part of the cash on the table, and the rest will be provided by twelve patent licensees that it organized with RPX. Turns out, the twelve licensees are the big names in the tech world: Apple, Google, RIM, Microsoft, FaceBook, Amazon, Samsung, Adobe, Shutterfly, Huawei, Fujifilm and HTC, meaning each company will pay about $43 million. The auctioned patents relate to the capture, manipulation and sharing of digital images, previously estimated to be worth $2.6 billion.

This was a necessary step for Kodak: it needed to sell its patents for at least $500 million to secure $830 in financing, so it can exit bankruptcy in the first half of 2013.

Considering earlier estimates of these patents’ worth, the current deal is a bargain for each buyer, as in court Kodak said licensing these patents generated more than $3 billion in revenue to companies like Samsung, LG, Motorola and Nokia.