Google, Apple, Facebook Team Up on Kodak Patents

12-company group buys digital photography patents for $525M
By John Johnson,  Newser Staff
Posted Dec 19, 2012 1:34 PM CST
Google, Apple, Facebook Team Up on Kodak Patents
Kodak headquarters in Rochester, N.Y.   (AP Photo/David Duprey)

Add "patent fire sales" to the list of things that breed strange bedfellows. A 12-company consortium that includes Apple, Google, Facebook, and Amazon has snapped up $525 million worth of patents on digital photography from bankrupt Eastman Kodak, reports Bloomberg. Longtime Kodak rival Fujifilm and Blackberry maker RIM also were in the group. Kodak needs the cash to emerge from bankruptcy restructuring in 2013, when its leaner new version plans to focus mostly on commercial printing and packaging, notes the LA Times. (More Eastman Kodak stories.)

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