Bankruptcy judge denies Apple permission to sue Kodak

Judge Allan Gropper, who is presiding over Kodak's Chapter 11 proceedings in a Manhattan U.S. District Court, refused Apple's request last week to sue Kodak for alleging that its digital cameras, digital photo frames, and printers infringe on patents owned by Apple. To get out of bankruptcy, Kodak hopes to sell patents for its digital imaging products for about $2.6 million, www.latimes.com reported.

As the IP Blog reported on February 23, 2012, Apple said in its bankruptcy court filing that it planned to file a complaint against Kodak at the International Trade Commission (ITC) and a fellow suit in the U.S. District Court in Manhattan over a digital camera developed with Kodak in the early 1990s for which Kodak sought the patent.

But Judge Gropper said he should be the one figuring out Apple and Kodak’s patent dispute and not the ITC. Nonetheless, he agreed that the case needs to be solved sooner rather than later and in a way that doesn’t interfere with Kodak’s plans to sell its patent portfolio in order to get out of bankruptcy. "I would request that the parties report to me on their efforts to come up with a procedure that truly works," he said.