With a consortium of Big Tech companies purchasing its patents for $525 million, Kodak may soon find its way out of bankruptcy. But the selling price fell quite short of the amount at which the patents were initially valued. GPC's Alexander Poltorak explains why. ("Kodak sells imaging patents for $525m, coming close to bankruptcy end" Industry Leaders Magazine - December 20, 2012)
Article excerpt: The acquisition of Kodak’s digital imaging patents was won by the consortium, which is [led] by Intellectual Venture Management LLC and RPX Corp. The group includes as many as 12 big names such as Apple Inc., Amazon.com Inc., Google Inc., HTC Corp., Microsoft Corp., Facebook Inc. and others. Under terms of the deal, the payment is to be divided among the aforementioned licensees.
Initially...Kodak’s patents [in this portfolio] were valued at $2.6 billion. The estimate was overly optimistic as the deal shows. Certainly the initial estimate encouraged the management team of Eastman Kodak Co. to expect too much. Alex Poltorak, chairman of General Patent Corp., underlined: “Unfortunately (Kodak's management) was misled into thinking it was worth billions of dollars and it wasn’t,” adding that the amount which the company got for its patents was fair enough.