You got that right, two archrivals in mobile arena — Apple and Google — have joined forces to purchase imaging patents from Kodak, paying some $500 million for the privilege. Under the deal, both parties will be able to use Kodak’s intellectual property (IP) in their products.
We like when companies act like grownups trying to settle their disputes in joint actions, rather than suing each other. At the same time, we do understand companies don’t want to just give away results of their R&D efforts and are willing to go to court when needed. Still, “going thermonuclear” may be overreaching in some cases… depending whether your an Apple fanboy or not.
As I’m writing this, we’re not sure which of the patents from Kodak’s portfolio will end up in future smartphones and we’ll rather have to wait for few more weeks or months to see where this is going. We’ll let you know as soon as we hear something new…