Kodak granted right to sell imaging patents

PanARMENIAN.Net - Kodak has been granted the right to sell its 1,100 imaging patents to a consortium of 12 leading tech companies for $525 million, Digital Spy reported.

A group including Apple, Samsung, Facebook, Google and Microsoft will acquire the licenses from the fallen camera giant after US bankruptcy judge Allan Gropper approved the sale.

However, the deal sees cash-strapped Kodak receive only a quarter of the estimated $2-2.5 billion the patents were initially valued at.

Gropper said that he was "disappointed" with the final amount but remained upbeat about the photography firm's plight. "We're moving the case forward so we should be optimistic," Bloomberg quotes the judge as saying.

Kodak bowed out of the digital camera market a year ago, and has since looked to the cinema film stock and chemicals market to remain profitable.

The company will use the money for the patent sale to repay some of the estimated $665 million it owes to the financial firms that have helped keep it afloat.