Apple, RIM vs. Kodak: ITC will announce its decision today

On March 25, 2011, the International Trade Commission (ITC) will announce if it will review the earlier ruling of an ITC judge who ruled in favor of Apple and RIM.

This is a serious issue for Kodak as the company is losing its business to mobile phone makers. In an interview on March 24, 2011, Antonio Perez, CEO, Kodak, said that his company “deserves to win.” If it wins the ITC ruling, it would receive $1 billion from Apple and Research in Motion.

Kodak filed a complaint against Apple and RIM over patent infringement in January 2010 in the U.S. District Court for the West District of New York. It claimed that iPhone and BlackBerry phones are using technologies developed by Kodak. In February, ITC announced that it would look into Kodak’s allegation.

Apple and RIM also sued Kodak over patent infringement. In January 2011, an ITC judge ruled in favor of Apple and RIM.

Using the same patent infringement claim with the ITC, Kodak gained $550 million from Samsung and $414 million from LG.

Related article:

Bloomberg

RIM is rolling out Blackpad to compete with Apple iPad

Till now, it was the smartphone where Research In Motion and Apple fought for the top position but now RIM is getting into the tablet PC territory. Rumor spread out that the Canadian company is going to introduce a new tablet PC this November. RIM officials did not comment on the matter.

A reliable source said that the new device would have the same size as the iPad with a 9.7inch display. It would also have Wi-Fi and Bluetooth wireless technology allowing people to connect to the Internet via their BlackBerry phones.

However, the Blackpad would not offer cellular network access like the iPad.

According to Rodman & Renshaw analyst, Ashok Kumar, RIM is launching the product at the right time. It should not wait too long or else would fall far behind.

News reports said that RIM will name the device Blackpad and it would come with similar price tag to that of the iPad; $499. Whois database domain names also revealed that RIM acquired the Internet rights to blackpad.com this month.

Now, the big question is- Will the Blackpad pose a threat to Apple iPad? At this stage, nobody can tell exactly. However, RIM has a tough fight ahead of it. It would have to offer lots of applications to compete with Apple’s App store which currently offers 2,25,000 applications for iPad.

Many industry experts believe that RIM’s tablet PC would focus on the email capabilities of BlackBerry and would also offer a wide arrange of security features which made the BlackBerry smartphone a favorite among corporate users.