Hoya & Kodak updates
Hoya announced their results for the financial year ending on March 31, 2011
"Revenues from continuing operations grew 2.7% over the previous fiscal year, to 413,349 million yen and profit before tax was up 26.2% to 63,758 million yen, mainly due to an increase in orders with the recovery in the market."
"Optics business did well this year despite temporary shutdown of the production lines due to rolling blackout after the Tohoku Great Earthquakes in March and thanks to an increasing demand for digital cameras. There are still some impacts of the disaster on our company, but except digital camera business that has difficulties in procurement of parts, our business will return toward normal by the end of May." (according to Hoya CEO Hiroshi Suzuki)
A Washington based judge decided that Kodak did not infringed Apple's patents. Apple filed a lawsuit against Kodak shortly after Kodak sued them for infringing a patent related to ways of previewing images. Kodak is expecting to win as much as $1 billion in licensing revenue if they win the case. As a result, Kodak's stock price went up 5%. Kodak has been in financial trouble lately and such a big settlement may keep them alive.