Polaroid Sues Kodak

Man's love is of man's life a thing

apart.

'Tis woman's whole existence. --Lord Byron, Don Juan, 1819

Clumsily paraphrasing the poet at Polaroid Corp.'s annual meeting last week, Chairman Edwin Land said that "to the rest of the photographic industry, instant photography is a thing apart. To Polaroid, it is the whole of life." By "the rest" of the industry, Land meant Eastman'Kodak, which six days earlier had introduced two instant-picture cameras of its own (TIME, May 3), threatening Polaroid with its first serious competition since Land invented instant photography three decades ago. Though Kodak's entry had long been anticipated, Land viewed it as an illegal incursion on turf that he had carefully cultivated into an $800 million-a-year business--and thousands of Polaroid shareholders agreed. They greeted with prolonged applause and cheers an announcement that Polaroid had sued Kodak in an effort to stop the photographic giant (1975 sales: $5 billion) from moving in on Polaroid's territory.

The suit, filed at literally the last minute (4:59 p.m.) in Boston's U.S. District Court the day before both Polaroid and Kodak held their annual meetings, charges Kodak with violating ten Polaroid patents for instant film and cameras--two of them filed by Land personally. Along with triple damages, the suit asks the court to block Kodak from selling its cameras, which it had planned to do starting this month in Canada and late next month in the U.S.

Prancing and gesturing in front of a giant photograph of Renoir's painting The Dance at Bougival (taken by an experimental Polaroid camera that reproduces works of art with startling fidelity), Land put on a virtuoso performance for the stockholders. He passionately defended the U.S. patent system: "We took nothing from anybody. We gave a great deal to the world. The only thing keeping us alive is our brilliance. The only thing that keeps our brilliance alive is our patents." He' twitted Kodak's new camera, saying that "the new group would like to confine its use to cocktail parties." That was a reference to the Kodak cameras' bulky size and the belief of some analysts that it is best suited to indoor use.

Patent Attack. Land's performance skirted the questions of whether 30 years is long enough, in the U.S. competitive system, for a company to have a market all to itself and of how sound the legal basis is for Polaroid's suit. Kodak brushed off the suit. In a formal statement issued in the U.S., it denied knowingly violating any "valid" patents, and it promptly sued in Canada to have Polaroid's patents declared invalid.

Precedent is against Polaroid's stopping Kodak from selling its cameras. Six years ago, for example, Xerox sued to prevent IBM from selling a plain-paper copier. The suit is still unresolved and IBM not only is selling the line of copiers involved but has come out with two new ones. The outlook in the camera case is for a pitched battle in the marketplace while the struggle in the courthouse drags on. Polaroid's and Kodak's patent lawyers are the best, and they have already fully prepared their cases. One patent lawyer not connected with either side says that his colleagues at Kodak studied Polaroid's patents for six or seven years, then advised management to go ahead with the new cameras in the full knowledge that they might be sued. One possible outcome: an out-of-court settlement in which Kodak would sell its new cameras but pay royalties to Polaroid on any patents that were in fact infringed.

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