A group including Apple Inc., Google Inc. and Research In Motion Ltd. agreed to buy patents from bankrupt Eastman Kodak Co. for about $525 million, gaining digital-imaging technology to capture and share pictures.

The group is led by Intellectual Ventures Management LLC and RPX Corp.

Google (Nasdaq: GOOG), Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) and RIM (Nasdaq: RIMM) are among the 12 patent licensees participating in the deal, according to a court filing. 

Facebook Inc., Amazon.com Inc. and Microsoft Corp. also are part of the group, the court filing shows, along with Samsung Electronics Co., Adobe Systems Inc., Fujifilm Holdings Corp., Huawei Technologies Co., HTC Corp. and Shutterfly Inc.

Kodak said the sale will help it repay a substantial amount of its initial debtor-in-possession loan, and it satisfies a key condition of new financing that required the sale of the patents for at least $500 million.

In November, Kodak said it would receive loans worth $830 million in a new, cheaper financing package, replacing a $793 million deal.

Kodak has been pummeled in recent years as consumers switched to digital photography from film. It put its patents up for sale in July 2011, and analysts initially thought the portfolio could fetch between $2 billion and $3 billion because patents have become highly valuable to digital device makers who want to protect themselves from intellectual property lawsuits. But Kodak struggled to find a buyer.

Meanwhile, Kodak has been working to refocus its business on commercial and packaging printing, leaving behind its digital cameras, pocket video cameras and digital picture frames businesses.

Kodak spokesman Christopher Veronda said each licensee will pay a portion of the total cost and then have access to all the patents.

The auctioned patents — more than 1,100 related to the capture, manipulation and sharing of digital images — were previously estimated by advisory firm 284 Partners LLC to be worth as much as $2.6 billion.

“This is a fraction of our overall patent portfolio,” said Chris Veronda, a spokesman for Rochester, New York-based Kodak. “We retain ownership of about 9,600 other patents for our ongoing businesses.”

The agreement resolves all patent-infringement lawsuits between Kodak and the 12 licensees, Veronda said. That includes suits Kodak had against Apple, RIM, Fujifilm, HTC, Samsung and Shutterfly. In a May filing, Kodak had said Apple alone owed it more than $1 billion in patent royalties.

Competing Consortiums

Before uniting as one bidding group, Apple and Google had led competing consortiums bidding for Kodak’s patents, people familiar with the situation said earlier this year.

Unlikely partnerships occur in patent sales because they allow competitors to neutralize potential infringement litigation. A group including Apple, Microsoft and RIM bought Nortel Networks Corp.’s more than 6,000 patents for $4.5 billion out of bankruptcy last year. Google lost the auction for those patents after making an initial offer of $900 million.

Kodak needed to sell the patents for at least $500 million under a November agreement — codenamed Komodo — to obtain $830 million in financing to exit bankruptcy in the first half of 2013. That funding also requires progress in the sale of two business units and resolution of U.K. pension obligations. The patent sale had to be agreed upon by Jan. 31 and must close by Feb. 28.
In court documents, Kodak said it had generated more than $3 billion in revenue by licensing some of the patents to outside users, including Samsung, LG Electronics Inc., Google’s Motorola Mobility unit and Nokia Oyj.

Selling Businesses

Chief Executive Officer Antonio Perez has been selling businesses to shrink Kodak and fund its shift into commercial printing and packaging after seeking Chapter 11 protection in January. The company is also selling its consumer-film, photo- kiosk and commercial-scanner businesses and shuttering its consumer inkjet-printer unit.

Kodak filed for bankruptcy after years of burning through cash while the rise of digital photography eroded its film business. The company has announced almost 4,000 job cuts this year and spent $3.4 billion on restructuring before bankruptcy, including payouts to fire 47,000 employees since 2003.

The 132-year-old imaging company listed $5.1 billion in assets and $6.75 billion in debt in its bankruptcy filing.

(The AP and Bloomberg contributed to this report.)