Apple Locks Legal Horns With Bankrupt Kodak

While lying on its deathbed Kodak is bracing for a legal onslaught from Apple, as the technology giant is seeking permission to sue the bankrupt camera company for intellectual property theft.

If Apple wins the case then Kodak would be banned from importing various products which Apple claims infringe on its patents. These products include printers, which is where Kodak is keen to make up lost ground after its camera business failed.

However, the legal threats are not travelling on a one-way street; in January Kodak sued Apple for infringing patents relating to transferring images to and from devices.

The latest legal spat Apple is targeting alleged violations of its technology used in printers, digital cameras and digital picture frames produced by Kodak.

Kodak filed for bankruptcy in the US in early February and on the 16th the famous Kodak Theatre lost its name - a branding exercise that costs the company $3.6m (£2.3) per year - the camera maker was approved to receive $950m in financing from Citigroup.

In a strange twist, Kodak recently announced that it would leaving the digital camera market altogether, and will instead compete against Hewlett-Packard by producing more printers.

Apple is currently involved in many legal disputes the world over against Samsung, HTC and Google; its most recent being a tussle with Google about the 'Slide to Unlock' feature on the company's smartphones and tablets. A German court agreed with Apple that the version of Google's Android OS running on some Motorola devices had infringed its patents relating to sliding an icon across the screen to unlock the device.

The ruling may result in a sales ban placed on the offending products in Germany, but Motorola has said that the decision would not affect "current supply or future sales".