Barco will be holding private demonstrations of its laboratory laser projector in Los Angeles early February. This is not expected to be a sales push, but rather, an informative demonstration of the state of the technology.
Kodak lost an important patent infringement battle with cell phone makers Rim and Apple, who successfully argued that the patent was an “obvious variation of an earlier invention.” The loss of the case could cost Kodak $400M a year in patent royalties from Samsung and LG. As film sales drop, Kodak’s revenue base is shifting to the licensing of its significant patent pool. Notably, NEC entered into a patent sharing agreement with Kodak in December 2010. It was long an opinion of this journal that Kodak stepped into digital cinema with the primary goal of developing intellectual property. It remains to be seen how much of Kodak’s digital cinema patent pool can be positioned as an obvious variation of an earlier invention.