Apple, Google, HTC, LG and Samsung purportedly form unlikely allegiance against Intellectual Ventures in bid for Kodak patents, causing Kodak investor to ask US Trustee to probe the auction.
MacWorld reports that Apple, Google, HTC, LG and Samsung are joining together to bid against “patent troll” Intellectual Ventures in the auction of Kodak’s digital imaging patents, despite the companies normally being major rivals in the IT manufacturing industry.
According to the article, Intellectual Ventures, owned by Nathan Myhrvold, is “the fifth largest patent holder in the US” and has gained a reputation for using patents it acquires to “file infringement lawsuits against other companies”. For this reason, the other companies competing for possession of Kodak’s 1,100 patents are striving to prevent Intellectual Ventures from acquiring the patents and using them against them.
Also reported as a bidder in Kodak’s auction is RPX Corp – a group of companies who are also trying to prevent being sued by a patent troll.
News of the alliance between Apple, Google, HTC, LG and Samsung sparked Esopus Creek Value Series Fund LP, a New York hedge fund which holds Kodak’s 9.75 percent Senior Secured Notes to request the US Trustee overseeing Kodak’s bankruptcy to probe the patent auction as the investor became “concerned as to the integrity of the bidding process”, reports Bloomberg.
Tracy Hope Davis, the US trustee supervising Kodak’s bankruptcy, purportedly received a letter via email from the Kodak investor asking for the auction of Kodak’s patents to be probed as it claimed that the “unusually secretive” bidding process would not benefit creditors.
The letter reportedly read that according to bankruptcy law “the trustee is entitled to avoid any sale resulting from collusive bidding”. Davis had not responded to the request at the time of writing.
A Kodak spokesperson commented that “the auction procedures were approved by the court, which also ordered that all parties should maintain confidentiality, as we are doing.”
The auction of Kodak’s patents has been on-going since 8 August and has been extended due to continued discussions amongst the companies involved, with the end-date originally being set for 13 August. The Recycler reported earlier this week that Kodak may decide not to sell the patents at all, after opening bids were reportedly significantly lower than expected.