The end of the century-old company Kodak is near. The company is about to start a public auction to sell its extensive patent portfolio, one of the last assets that remain after filing for bankruptcy in January this year. The decline of this company has come to the point that and just rely on their survival beyond the sale. The money received by these patents would be used to pay creditors with whom the company has.
Kodak has more than 110 years of history and is one of the most traditional companies in the field of photography. Despite the great success it achieved over many decades, the advent of digital cameras meant the beginning of the decline of this great company (even though the first digital camera that was released was Kodak).
After many years making a loss, the U.S. company decided to enter into receivership earlier this year. One of the first measures taken was to stop developing digital cameras to focus on the most profitable company, such as your network of kiosk printing.
However, out of this situation seems to limit the sale of its extensive patent portfolio. Kodak has about 1,100 patents, which the company valued at more than 2,000 million euros. This would allow the company to have sufficient liquidity to pay the salaries of its employees and deal with debts that counts, but would also weaken their competitiveness on the market until a critical point. Probably, the company has no choice but to end up disappearing or find a buyer who wants to be with the company.
The first sale deals that have come to the company are well below the price you want to achieve Kodak for their patents. Some of the investment groups that have sent initial bids are behind companies of the weight of Google and Apple, who are very interested in having the patents of the firm of photographic equipment.
Some of these patents are closely related to the technologies used in the chambers of smartphones, which could become a competitive advantage to be taken into account (which explains the interest that Apple and Google in them, given their weight in this market with the system Android and the system IOS).
The figures are shuffled when moving between $ 150 million and $ 250 million (115 million euros and 190 million), an amount far from the more than 2000 million Kodak wants but it could rise dramatically in the coming days by the struggle between these two companies. Anyway, the future of the U.S. photographic equipment company seems doomed, although the intention of the company is back to get liquidity to stay alive.
