“The U.S. International Trade Commission this afternoon said it voted to uphold in essence an earlier ruling that threw out a claim of patent infringement by Eastman Kodak against Apple and Research in Motion, while remanding other matters back to the administrative law judge [ALJ] for further consideration, with a deadline of August 30th,” Tiernan Ray reports for Barron’s.
Ray reports, “Kodak shares are down 68 cents, or 19%, at $2.90 in late trading, as clearly the partial affirmation of the earlier rejection of the company’s claims is a disappointment for those who were expecting a victory against Apple and RIM.”
Full article here.
Florian Mueller writes for FOSS Patents, “This is going to be an uphill battle for Kodak because the Commission still leaves it to the ALJ to decide whether the relevant patent claim is valid. If the ALJ once again concludes that it’s invalid, Kodak loses. Only the infringement of a valid patent is legally relevant.”
“Given that Kodak is not too likely to prevail, a possible outcome now is a settlement that would cost Apple and RIM a fraction — possibly a tiny fraction — of the billion-dollar amount Kodak and some observers previously considered realistic. This way, Kodak would at least get some cash to finance its restructuring while Apple and RIM could eliminate the remaining risk of losing,” Mueller writes. “Also, let’s not forget that there are federal lawsuits going on, and Apple and RIM would presumably also like to get rid of those — but on their terms now rather than Kodak’s.”
Read more in the full article here.
The U.S. ITC’s statement (.pdf) is here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Readers “Fred Mertz” and “KenC” for the heads up.]
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