Kodak may scoop £580m in court win
EASTMAN Kodak is in line for a $1.06bn (£580m) payout after winning a controversial patent lawsuit against Sun Microsystems.
A jury has ruled that Sun's Java software infringes several software patents that Eastman Kodak bought in 1997. The jury will reconvene this week to assess damages.
Although software developers download Java from a Sun website for nothing, Kodak said before the trial that if it won, it would ask for $1.06bn in lost royalties - half of its operating profit from the sales of computer servers and storage equipment between January 1998 and June 2001.
Kodak's argument is that Java is a key factor in 90% of Sun's sales.
Sun, which went into the trial after long negotiations with Kodak about a licensing deal fell through, says more than three million programmers worldwide use Java, mainly incorporating the software into internet applications.
The company has never been able to make much money from Java. In its third quarter, it earned $795m - thanks mainly to a $1.95bn settlement from Microsoft - against a loss of $1.04bn a year earlier. Sales rose 4.3% to $3.11bn from $2.98bn.
Kodak has also been struggling as its traditional photographic businesses contract by about 10% a year. In its second quarter it reported a 36.6% drop in profits down from $513m to $325m. Sales fell 4% to $3.59bn from $3.75bn.
In response, the company under chairman and chief executive Daniel Carp, is switching to digital printing and imaging, and plans to cash in on various patents it has developed or bought over the years.
