Kodak has filed a patent infringement suit against Apple related to digital imaging technology that’s used in the iPhones, iPads and iPods, according to MarketWatch on Tuesday.
Kodak has s portfolio of approximately 1,000 digital imaging patents. This lawsuit relates to U.S. Patent Nos. 7,210,161, 7,742,084, 7,453,605 and 7,936,391. These patents relate primarily to the electronic transmission of images on a network, via e-mail, etc.
HTC was named in a fifth filing.
According to Florian Mueller, a patent expert, Kodak may have ulterior motives for this filing: “Kodak has been trying for some time to find a strategic buyer for its digital imaging patents. Today’s lawsuits are presumably part of the sales and marketing effort for those patents: Kodak seeks to demonstrate that there are still some interesting assets in its portfolio that can be used to sue major wireless device makers.”
Whether Apple decides to fight the patents or just buys the patent portfolio will be interesting to see. It all depends on a potential buyer’s estimate of how valuable the patents are and whether it may be cheaper to just fight them in court and seek for example, a declaratory judgment.