Apple, Google Reportedly Bid $500 Million For Kodak Patents

Apple and Google may be set to form an unlikely partnership in order to acquire Kodak's numerous imaging patents.

Bloomberg sources have claimed the companies have abandoned separate bids to acquire the 1,100 patents belonging to the financially troubled Kodak, subsequently teaming up with a $500 million bid.

Apple and Google were each leading separate consortiums to purchase the patents in questions for a price ranging from $150 million to $250 million.

Kodak, which had filed for bankruptcy protection back in January, is required to sell the patents in order to help pay a $950 million loan from Citigroup. The company expects to exit bankruptcy in 2013, while court documents had revealed that the firm valued its patent portfolio at around $2.6 billion.

Google had recently stressed that it's baffled by Apple's decision to sue Android partners instead of directly suing the search engine giant itself.

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