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Kodak Still Pushing For $1 Billion in Patent Royalties From Apple and RIM [Updated]

Friday March 25, 2011 6:12 am PDT by Eric Slivka

Bloomberg reports that the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) is set to announce today whether it will reexamine a preliminary decision ruling that Apple and Research in Motion have not infringed upon a Kodak patent related to digital camera technology. Kodak, which remains confident that it will prevail in the dispute, believes that it can extract on the order of $1 billion in licensing fees from the two companies, on par with royalties it received from Samsung and LG following a fight over the same patent.

A decision is scheduled for about 5 p.m. Washington time today on whether the U.S. International Trade Commission will review a judge's findings from January that Apple's iPhone and RIM's BlackBerry don't violate Kodak's patent on an image- preview feature in camera phones. Opening a review would revive Kodak's effort to extract compensation from Apple and RIM.

"This is a lot of money, big money," said [Kodak CEO Antonio] Perez, who estimates the royalties may be similar to payments the company received from Samsung Electronics Co. and LG Electronics Inc.

Kodak filed the patent suits against Apple and RIM in January 2010, and the ITC agreed a month later to review the case. Apple struck back with a countersuit against Kodak in April 2010 alleging infringement of a number of patents related to image processing, power management, and memory architectures. The ITC agreed in May 2010 to review that case, but has yet to issue a decision on it.

Update: The ITC today announced that it will in fact reexamine the earlier ruling that had made in Apple's favor, breathing new life into Kodak's case.

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