Last week Eastman Kodak Company announced that it has filed a counter-lawsuit against Fujifilm, alleging that the latter has infringed upon certain of its patents related to digital imaging technology. That lawsuit followed reports that Kodak was preparing for a potential bankruptcy filing, as the company posted a series of financial losses with the decline of the traditional film business.

Those reports have now been confirmed as the struggling company filed for Chaper 11 bankruptcy protection. According to the Associated Press, Kodak managed to secure $950 million in financing from financial giant Citigroup, which will enable the company to continue operations throughout the bankruptcy reorganisation period and pay its employees.

Besides obtaining financing from Citigroup, Kodak is also looking to bring in funds from other avenues using its 1100 digital imaging patents in a number of patent lawsuits against companies the likes of Apple, HTC and Fujifilm. The latest target of its patent litigation is Korean tech giant Samsung.

The firm announced that it has filed a lawsuit against Samsung Electronics in the US District Court for the Western District of New York, alleging that the Korean tech company infringed upon five patents related to Kodak digital imaging technology.

These patents include one for a digital camera with communications interface for selectively transmitting images over a cellular phone network and a wireless LAN network to a destination (US Patent No. 7 936 391). Another deals with capturing digital images to be transferred to an email address (US Patent No. 7 453 605).

 

In other patent lawsuit related news Apple has recently filed a design rights lawsuit against Samsung in Germany.