Kodak Sues Apple Over Imaging Patents

Reeling from an 88% drop in its stock value last year, Kodak is looking to its expansive patent library as a source of recovery cash to mount a comeback.  Today, the 131-year-old imaging company sued Apple and HTC over imaging patents while, yesterday, Apple’s stock hit an all-time high.

FOSS Patents lays out the particular patents Kodak says Apple is violating:

• U.S. Patent No. 7,210,161 on “automatically transmitting images from an electronic camera to a service provider using a network configuration file”
• U.S. Patent No. 7,742,084 on a “network configuration file for automatically transmitting images from an electronic still camera”
• U.S. Patent No. 7,453,605 on “capturing digital images to be transferred to an e-mail address”
• U.S. Patent No. 7,936,391 on a “digital camera with communications interface for selectively transmitting images over a cellular phone network and a wireless LAN network to a destination”

The claim targets the Fourth Generation iPod touch, the iPhone 3G, 3GS, 4 as well as the iPhone 4S. And don’t forget the iPad 2! In Kodak’s statement, Laura Quatela, Kodak’s Chief Operating Officer, said:

“Our primary interest is not to disrupt the availability of any product but to obtain fair compensation for the unauthorized use of our technology.’

“We’ve had numerous discussions with both companies in an attempt to resolve this issue, and we have not been able to reach a satisfactory agreement.”

Do you feel that Kodak is entitled to a share of revenues from the successful iOS devices?