As a further show of proof of how Apple can be disruptive to other companies and their products, comes the report of action camera maker GoPro seeing shares of their stock slide 12% following news of a digital camera patent being assigned to Apple.
Apple was granted US patent no. 8,934,045 yesterday by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office for a remote control camera system powered by a wrist-worn device.
While some news outlets reported the patent as an in-house Apple invention, the patent actually became the property of Apple as part of a number of patents purchased from Kodak in 2012. The film camera company auctioned off its intellectual property to a pair of consortiums led by Apple and Google for a combined sale price of $525 million.
While Apple certainly purchased the patents from Kodak for a reason, the assignment of the patent to Apple doesn’t in any way indicate the company will soon be rushing a GoPro competitor to market any time soon. However, the 12% stock price drop for GoPro certainly is an excellent indicator of how disruptive Apple can be to other companies.
