Judge Paul Luckern the overseeing judge for the US International Trade Commission (ITC) has in effect dismissed the case by stating that both Apple and RIM’s implementations do not infringe on Kodak’s patents. This decision will be reviewed by a six man panel, but the decision is most likely going to stand.

Kodak claims that it developed the first digital camera back in 1975, and recently has been trying to leverage its patent portfolio as a way to earn revenue to grow its digital camera business, which seems to be suffering from all the competition as digital cameras become ubiquitous in pretty much all mobile devices these days. It seems they have waited too long to try and develop this market and are fighting an uphill battle. And this lawsuit seems to be a little but like slamming the barn door shut after the proverbial horse have bolted.

Unfortunately Apple has also filed a counter-suit against Kodak, a common move in these kinds of cases. But now that Kodak seems to have lost its claim it is certainly on the back foot, and faces at the very least more legal bills, rather than the chance of some income from its new rivals (which it presumably perceives as young upstarts) in the photographic arena.

Do you think this decision is fair? Have your say in the comments…

This is also a similar strategy to the one that Apple employed when sued by Nokia for allegedly infringing the Finnish company’s mobile handset patents.

Apple was originally hit with a suit by Kodak for various imaging patents it claims Apple infringed on. The ITC agreed to look into Kodak’s claim in February of this year.

The two patents that Apple cites in its counter suit are :

• Apple Granted Patent 6,031,964 : System and method for using a unified memory architecture to implement a digital camera device.
• Apple Granted Patent RE38,911 : Modular digital image processing via an image processing chain with modifiable parameter controls.

What is interesting about this pairing is that I have to wonder if it has any bearing on the lack of cameras we are seeing in iPods and iPads.

And how does the timing of this suit work with the upcoming more advanced camera in the new iPhone 4G, and imaging technology going into iPhone OS 4.0?

It seems that when the big boys get involved in Patent Suits the idea is to stack up all your various claims against one another and then play top-trumps to see what compromise can be reached.

Expect lawyers to get rich from this, and it to all probably be settled out of court.

Does Apple have a case? Or is this simply a tactic, similar to HTC’s, to try and back Kodak off? Let us know in the comments.