DESK 2 — FILE OPEN
FOLDER K-0119CASE #2012-0119SHELF 4 / ROW C
BUREAU OF COMMERCIAL DEATHS
DIVISION OF COLD CASES / FORM 41-D / DEATH OF A GOING CONCERN
CASE NUMBER
CASE #2012-0119
SUBJECT
EASTMAN KODAK COMPANY
DATE OPENED
1892 — Rochester, New York
DATE CLOSED
January 19, 2012
KNOWN ALIASES
Big Yellow
INVESTIGATOR
Det. Redact
CAUSE OF DEATH
Subject invented the digital camera in 1975 and filed the invention where it could do no harm.
PEAK VALUATION
$15,968,000,000 in annual sales (1996)
ASSETS RECOVERED
Digital imaging patents sold, 2012, for approximately $525,000,000. Subject emerged from bankruptcy in 2013, smaller, and is still reporting.
EVIDENCE SUMMARY
In 1975 subject’s own engineer built a working digital camera: eight pounds, 0.01 megapixels, twenty-three seconds per image, recorded to cassette tape. Management asked that it not be discussed.
A 1981 study by subject’s market intelligence division forecast that digital photography would displace film within roughly a decade. Subject treated the forecast as a schedule, not a warning.
In 1991 subject paid $925,000,000 to Polaroid Corporation for infringing its instant-photography patents. Both were later ended by the same screen.
Remainder of statement sealed:
DESK NOTE — INVESTIGATING OFFICER
You press the button. They didn’t.
FILED BY Det. Redact · BADGE 0001NO FURTHER ACTION AUTHORIZED
PROPERTY OF THE BUREAUDO NOT REMOVE FROM ROOM 0114
MARGIN NOTE — INVESTIGATING OFFICER
It saw its own death on a cassette tape in 1975 and put the tape in a drawer. I have a drawer like that. I am trying not to think about it.
EXHIBIT A — recovered at the scene.
EVIDENCE TAG
ITEM K-0119
SUBJECT EASTMAN KODAK COMPANY
RECEIVED 2012
CONDITION AS FOUND
SUBJECT EASTMAN KODAK COMPANY
RECEIVED 2012
CONDITION AS FOUND