Kodak Sues HTC and Apple 177
alphadogg writes "Here we go again with mobile industry patent lawsuits: 'Struggling Eastman Kodak is alleging that Apple's and HTC's smartphones and tablets infringe on its digital imaging technology, and has filed a complaint and lawsuits with the U.S. International Trade Commission and the U.S. District Court for the Western District of New York. The complaint to the ITC claims that some of Apple's iPhones, iPads, and iPods, and HTC's smartphones and tablets, infringe Kodak patents related to technology for transmitting images. Kodak also alleges that HTC's smartphones infringe on a patent related to a method for previewing images, which is already the subject of pending actions against Apple.'"
Tired of this (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Heh... in the 90s... (Score:4, Informative)
And the QuickTake 100 and 150 were both rebranded Kodak hardware.
Re:When you can't innovate, (Score:5, Informative)
Kodak has been pretty capable on the innovation front. They pretty much invented the digital camera. Their problem has been the business execution to make money off their innovation.
Though of late they probably haven't been innovating so much. Their current CEO has made two failed attempts to become a printer company and a TV company which are two markets which are completely dominated by incumbents and they've been bleeding money throughout the attempt.
Re:Death Rattle (Score:5, Informative)
I'm sorry, but only Kodak put Kodak into this spot ... they've staunchly refused/failed to move forward, have rested on their laurels while the industry changed around them ... and to be honest, they've made abysmally low quality consumer stuff for years.
My wife's parents now have their second Kodak camera ... truthfully, it's a POS, but they don't use it much and is simple for them to use. We bought a photo printer that died in a few weeks. The one we returned it for died a few weeks after that. Utter garbage.
I have no sympathy for Kodak. I mourned the loss of Kodachrome, but that was more nostalgia. Seriously, Kodak hasn't made anything of value in years ... and I currently own something like 5 or 6 cameras, so it's not like I'm not in the market for things you'd think they'd be making.
This is just the dying throws of a company who has failed to remain relevant in a changing environment.
Kodak is not a patent troll (Score:4, Informative)
It invented most of the stuff, and it licenses its patents to most everyone(some 30 companies at last count including LG Electronics, Motorola, Samsung Electronics and Nokia ). It just wants Apple and HTC to pay up. I would recommend they do because having a nice friendly little Kodak license your patents is better than having
a competitor acquire kodak. Also the company is using the patents in its own products.
Re:Kodak's Future... (Score:5, Informative)
If I recall correctly it had more to do with some arbitrary and insane insistence on 'Consumer Imaging' being the business focus, which is why you got cheap consumer cameras (easy share), printer docs (with attempts to cash in on printer paper consumables), but little pro-sumer stuff, and the occasional/rare super high-end imagers/gear (like those used in telescopes, etc).
This is also why they sold off/spun off their profitable medical imaging groups, chemicals group, and they've tried to get rid of their profitable Document Imaging group (high-end, high-speed document scanners) several times. They've been constantly trying to push themselves into the most difficult and price-competitive market possible, cheapo consumer cameras. I think the ultimate goal was to maintain some kind of grasp of the photo printing business as their cash cow with consumable manufacturing/selling. To be fair, they still do a good job printing pictures, but people don't really want/need to do that anymore with rare exceptions. And people that still do prints do it in-house or have local labs that do the work.
Re:Kodak's Future... (Score:5, Informative)
1920*1080 which is the highest consumer resolution available is around 2MP
Apple's Thunderbolt Display [apple.com] (and the 27" Cinema Display before it) is 2560x1440.
Dell's 27" U2711 [dell.com] has the same resolution (I think they may be using the same panel), and the 30" U3011 [dell.com] is 2560x1600.
2560*1600 which is the highest resolution available for individual displays in the market is around 4MP
The Eizo RadiForce LS560W [eizo.com] is 3840x2160. The RX840 [eizo.com] is 4096x2160. And although most people would not want a monochrome monitor, you can get them all the way to at least 4096x2560, like the GX1030 [eizo.com]. And that is just sticking to Eizo monitors, I didn't check other high end brands.
I get your point, but your numbers are quite off