Don’t worry, take a deep breath, and reread that title. Did you read it right? Well, if you saw that Apple is joining some other companies to buy Kodak patents, yes, you read it correctly. That’s right, Apple alongside other companies including Google, Samsung (this is just awkward…), LG, and more will be bidding together for some of Kodak’s intellectual property patents.

If you remember back in January, Kodak filed for bankruptcy, so now, according to The Wall Street Journal, it is auctioning off its patents in order to get the money to go through a “Chapter 11 court protection.” The company is looking to auction off all its 1,100 photography related patents, but could also end it without finalizing a deal. It sounds like a good amount of buyers are looking into the auction though, as said by the WSJ:

In a statement Thursday, Kodak said discussions with buyers are active and that it isn’t ready to announce a result. The company added that it might decline to sell some or all of the patents, depending on how the auction progresses.

Photography patents have come up a few times in the never-ending patent disputes, and this would benefit almost all the major companies involved in making mobile handsets. Smartphones especially are beginning to use better cameras and better software for them, so there has to be something in these patents that these companies could take and implement into their devices. No matter what, in the end the consumer will benefit from a deal like this.

What do you think? Interested in what becomes of this? What patents do you think these companies may use? Let us know in the comments.

Via: 9to5Mac, WSJ