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Rochester Technology

Kodak says they have 20 interested patent buyers. Well, sorta.

Kodak has investors worried over the fate of its patent sale, which the company insists is worth $2.4b. But “worth” and “sold for” are two different things.

While Brighton Securities and others seem less than thrilled with Kodak’s patent sale prospects, Kodak themselves have released a statement declaring that in fact 20 companies have signed confidentiality agreements to look into patent purchases:

Kodak Files Motion for Competitive Auction of Digital Imaging Patents

Over the past 12 months, Kodak’s financial advisor, Lazard, has conducted an extensive marketing process for these assets. To date, 20 parties have signed confidentiality agreements and have been provided access to an electronic data room.

This is a bit of parsing. Just because a company signs a confidentiality agreement with Kodak does not in any way imply that they’re actually going to buy anything. The confidentiality agreement just protects both parties’ company secrets so that the bidding company can feel free to have a look around.

The company is currently looking for approval of a confidential bidding system. Is this for the sake of potential buyers, or to save face when nobody bids?

By Tommy Belknap

Owner, developer, editor of DragonFlyEye.Net, Tom Belknap is also a freelance journalist for The 585 lifestyle magazine. He lives in the Rochester area with his wife and son.