Kodak has officially declared bankruptcy, which removes a lot of the uncertainty potential buyers had about purchasing its patents. But it remains to be seen whether Kodak will be able to make enough money from sales of its intellectual property to stay afloat and prevail in its ongoing litigation.
GPC's Alexander Poltorak spoke with The Financial Times about why Kodak still might have a problem selling its patents in "Battle set for Kodak’s patent portfolio" (FT.com, January 19, 2012).
Article excerpt: Though it has a “large and rich portfolio” of intellectual property rights, Kodak has already been squeezing cash from its interests by issuing licences to other companies, said Alexander Poltorak, head of General Patent Corporation, a US patent licensing group. That will both eat into the value of the patents and increase the complexity for potential buyers trying to assess their value, Mr Poltorak and other experts said.
...Though bankruptcy should clear the way, some experts said that the auction that will follow is unlikely to reach the fever-pitch seen in the Nortel case.
That was a “perfect storm” caused by Google’s need to boost its patent holdings to withstand a barrage of lawsuits against its Android operating system, which pushed the final price paid by the winning consortium above expectations, said Mr Poltorak.