A federal agency said on Friday that it would review Eastman Kodak Co’s high-stakes patent-infringement claim against technology giants Apple Inc and Research in Motion Ltd (RIM).
The US International Trade Commission (ITC) in Washington agreed to examine a judge’s finding in January that Apple’s iPhone and RIM’s BlackBerry don’t violate an image-preview patent the photography pioneer obtained in 2001.
The decision revives Kodak’s hopes of negotiating royalties worth US$1 billion or more. The agency’s six commissioners will decide by May 23 whether to alter the initial determination by its chief administrative judge, Paul Luckern, or let it stand.
PHOTO: REUTERS
Kodak spokesman Gerard Meuchner said: “We are pleased with the decision and we look forward to the next step in the process.”
Kodak’s shares jumped US$0.27, or 8.6 percent, to close at US$3.40 on Friday, then shot up US$0.72 to US$4.12 in after-hours trading.
They are trading in a 52-week range of US$2.90 to US$9.08.
Messages seeking comment from RIM were not immediately returned.
An Apple spokeswoman said the company had no comment.
After failed negotiations, Kodak filed a complaint against California-based Apple and Ontario-based RIM in January last year with the commission that oversees US trade disputes. It also filed two lawsuits against Apple in federal court, but it has not specified the damages it is seeking.
The company has amassed more than 1,000 digital-imaging patents, and almost all digital cameras rely on that technology. The 131-year-old camera maker has said it expects to continue to generate an average of between US$250 million and US$350 million annually through 2013 from licensing its digital technology. Over the past three years, it outpaced that figure, booking US$1.9 billion in revenue.
Separately, ITC judge James Gildea issued an initial ruling in a dispute between Apple and Nokia Corp on Friday, saying Apple did not infringe on five of Nokia’s patents.
Nokia, the world’s largest maker of cellphones, filed a complaint with the ITC in December 2009 alleging Apple’s iPods, iPhone and computers violate Nokia’s intellectual property rights. At issue were key features found in Apple products, including aspects of user interface, cameras, antenna and power management technologies, Nokia said at the time. The company claimed that the technologies in question help cut manufacturing costs, reduce gadget size and prolong battery life.
The cellphone maker began its patent fight with Apple in October 2009, filing its first patent infringement claim against Apple in Delaware. Apple filed a countersuit, claiming Nokia was infringing on a variety of its patents.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
MAJOR BENEFICIARY: The company benefits from TSMC’s advanced packaging scarcity, given robust demand for Nvidia AI chips, analysts said ASE Technology Holding Co (ASE, 日月光投控), the world’s biggest chip packaging and testing service provider, yesterday said it is raising its equipment capital expenditure budget by 10 percent this year to expand leading-edge and advanced packing and testing capacity amid strong artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing chip demand. This is on top of the 40 to 50 percent annual increase in its capital spending budget to more than the US$1.7 billion to announced in February. About half of the equipment capital expenditure would be spent on leading-edge and advanced packaging and testing technology, the company said. ASE is considered by analysts