“Apple Inc. and Google Inc. have joined forces to offer more than $500 million to buy Eastman Kodak Co.’s patents out of bankruptcy, said two people with knowledge of the situation,” Serena Saitto, Beth Jinks and Brian Womack report for Bloomberg. “The two companies, competing for dominance of the smartphone market, have partnered after leading two separate consortia this summer to buy Kodak’s 1,100 imaging patents, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the process is private.”

“Unlikely partnerships are typical in patent sales because they allow competitors to neutralize potential infringement litigation. A group including Apple, Microsoft Corp. and Research in Motion Ltd. bought Nortel Networks Corp.’s more than 6,000 patents for $4.5 billion out of bankruptcy last year,” Saitto, Jinks and Womack report. “Google lost the auction for those patents after making an initial offer of $900 million.”

Saitto, Jinks and Womack report, “The Wall Street Journal previously reported that a consortium offered more than $500 million for Kodak’s digital patents. Kodak obtained commitments for $830 million exit financing last month, contingent on its sale of the digital imaging patents for at least $500 million.”

Read more in the full article here.

MacDailyNews Take: They should offer Apple pi.

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