Aug. 30 (Bloomberg) -- Eastman Kodak Co., seeking to
generate cash from its intellectual property, has signed
confidentiality agreements with numerous potential buyers of
patents it put up for sale last month, Chief Executive Officer
Antonio Perez said.
“At the moment we announced that, the phone started to
ring,” Perez, 65, said yesterday in a telephone interview.
Lazard LLC, Kodak's adviser, has “contacted a large number of
people. There are a number of people who signed their NDAs,” he
said, referring to non-disclosure agreements protecting details
about inventions covered by the patents.
Kodak, headed for its sixth annual loss in the past seven
years, is trying to generate cash for its inkjet printers and
other digital businesses Perez is counting on to turn the
company around. The U.S. International Trade Commission has
delayed a ruling on Kodak's attempts to win $1 billion in
licensing fees from Apple Inc. and Research in Motion Ltd. for
image-preview technology used in cameras.
The patents may attract bids from Microsoft Corp., Apple
Inc., Google Inc. and Samsung Electronics Co., said Christopher
Marlett, founder and CEO of MDB Capital Group, a Santa Monica,
California-based investment bank specializing in intellectual
property.
Improved Cameras
The patents may help smartphone makers improve cameras on
their devices while enhancing the ability of Web companies to
identify images, Marlett said today by telephone.
Kristin Huguet, an Apple spokeswoman, declined to comment,
as did Microsoft spokesman Kevin Kutz and Jim Prosser, a
spokesman for Google. Chris Goodhart, a Samsung spokeswoman, did
not immediately return a call seeking comment.
Perez, CEO since 2005, said he's seeking patent deals that
give Kodak cash up front as well as preserve licensing rights to
its technology.
“All of this litigation takes a lot of time, and it's very
expensive and demands a lot of my time,” he said. “We would
rather get an infusion of cash in advance, being able to have a
series of relationships with many of those companies that
otherwise we'd have to be in legal conflict with.”
Kodak advanced 21 cents, or 6.9 percent, to $3.25 at 1:54
p.m. in New York Stock Exchange composite trading. Before today,
the shares had tumbled 43 percent this year.
Research in Motion shares climbed $1.68, or 5.6 percent, to
$31.66. The Waterloo, Ontario-based maker of the Blackberry
holds 2,033 patents, according to the U.S. Patent Office, and
may attract takeover interest from Samsung and Microsoft,
according to Stewart Capital.
The 1,100-plus patents Kodak put up for sale July 20 may
generate more than $2 billion, according to MDB Capital Group.
Not Core
“What we are selling is the part of the portfolio that
does not apply to the core investments and the future of the
company,” said Perez, who declined to disclose potential
bidders and specifics of negotiations.
He said Rochester, New York-based Kodak is trying to tap a
“very hot” market for intellectual property.
Google, the biggest maker of smartphone software, agreed to
buy Motorola Mobility Holdings Inc. for $12.5 billion this
month. Google had earlier bid for more than 6,000 Nortel
Networks Corp. patents and applications, losing out to a $4.5
billion offer from a group including Apple, Research in Motion
and Microsoft Corp.
“This is the right time,” Perez said. “The conversations
are going. We are hoping quickly to get to a good conclusion.”
To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Robin Ajello at
rajello@bloomberg.net
