Eastman Kodak Company

Name

The letter k was a favorite of Eastman's; he is quoted as saying, "it seems a strong, incisive sort of letter."

He and his mother, Maria, devised the name Kodak using an Anagrams set. Eastman said that there were three principal concepts he used in creating the name: it should be short, easy to pronounce, and not resemble any other name or be associated with anything else. According to a 1920 ad, the name "was simply invented – made up from letters of the alphabet to meet our trade-mark requirements. It was short and euphonious and likely to stick in the public mind."

Beginning and strategy

From the company's founding by George Eastman in 1888, Kodak followed the razor and blades business model of selling inexpensive cameras and making large margins from consumables – film, chemicals, and paper. As late as 1976, Kodak commanded 90% of film sales and 85% of camera sales in the U.S. Kodak developed and patented the first handheld digital camera in 1975.

Kodak Camera

Kodak began selling its original camera, created by George Eastman, in 1888 in the US for $25. It was a leather-covered box camera that came pre-loaded with 100-exposure roll film. When used up, the entire camera could be sent to the Kodak factory, after which it would be returned loaded with fresh film along with the negatives and mounted prints, for a cost of $10. It was advertised with the slogan "You Press the Button, We Do the Rest". Replacement film was sold for $2 for customers who had access to photographic processing. The ease of use and relatively low cost made photography widely accessible to the general public rather than only professional photographers, beginning the modern era of consumer photography.

Characteristics

The Kodak was a camera box built in the shape of a parallelepiped, with a fixed-focus lens on the front and no viewfinder; two V shape silhouettes at the top aided in aiming in the direction of the subject. At the top it had a rotating key to advance the film, a pull-string to set the shutter, and a button on the side to release it, exposing the celluloid film. Inside, it had a rotating bar to operate the shutter: when the user pressed the button to take a photograph, an inner rope was tightened and the photographic exposure began. Once the photograph had been taken, the user had to rotate the upper key to change the selected frame within the celluloid tape.

Rivalry with Fujifilm

Japanese competitor Fujifilm entered the U.S. market with lower-priced film and supplies, but Kodak did not believe that American consumers would ever desert its brand. Kodak declined an opportunity to become the official film of the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics; Fuji won these sponsorship rights, which gave it a permanent foothold in the market. Fuji opened a film plant in the U.S., and its aggressive marketing and price cutting began taking market share from Kodak. Fuji went from a 10% share in the early 1990s to 17% in 1997. Fuji also made headway into the professional market with specialty transparency films such as Velvia and Provia, which competed successfully with Kodak's signature professional product, Kodachrome, but used the more economical and common E-6 processing machines which were standard in most processing labs, rather than the dedicated machines required by Kodachrome. Fuji's films soon also found a competitive edge in higher-speed negative films, with a tighter grain structure.In May 1995, Kodak filed a petition with the US Commerce Department under section 301 of the Commerce Act arguing that its poor performance in the Japanese market was a direct result of unfair practices adopted by Fuji. The complaint was lodged by the United States with the World Trade Organization. On January 30, 1998, the WTO announced a "sweeping rejection of Kodak's complaints" about the film market in Japan. Kodak's financial results for the year ending December 1997 showed that the company's revenues dropped from $15.97 billion in 1996 to $14.36 billion in 1997, a fall of more than 10%; its net earnings went from $1.29 billion to just $5 million for the same period. Kodak's market share declined from 80.1% to 74.7% in the United States, a one-year drop of five percentage points that had observers suggesting that Kodak was slow to react to changes and underestimated its rivals.Although from the 1970s both Fuji and Kodak recognized the upcoming threat of digital photography, and although both sought diversification as a mitigation strategy, Fuji was more successful at diversification.

Shift to digital

Although Kodak developed the first handheld digital camera in 1975, the product was dropped for fear it would threaten Kodak's main income, its photographic film business. In the 1990s, Kodak planned a decade-long journey to move to digital technology. CEO George M. C. Fisher reached out to Microsoft and other new consumer merchandisers. Apple's pioneering QuickTake consumer digital cameras, introduced in 1994, had the Apple label but were produced by Kodak. The DC-20 and DC-25 launched in 1996. Overall, though, there was little implementation of the new digital strategy. Kodak's core business faced no pressure from competing technologies, and as Kodak executives could not imagine a world without traditional film there was little incentive to deviate from that course. Consumers gradually switched to the digital offerings from companies such as Sony. In 2001 film sales dropped, which was attributed by Kodak to the financial shocks caused by the September 11 attacks. Executives hoped that Kodak might be able to slow the shift to digital through aggressive marketing.Under Daniel Carp, Fisher's successor as CEO, Kodak made its move in the digital camera market, with its EasyShare family of digital cameras. Kodak spent tremendous resources studying customer behavior, finding out that women in particular loved taking digital photos but were frustrated in moving them to their computers. This key unmet consumer need became a major opportunity. Once Kodak got its product development started, they released a wide range of products which made it easy to share photos via PCs. One of their key innovations was a printer dock, where consumers could insert their cameras into this compact device, press a button, and watch their photos roll out. By 2005, Kodak ranked No. 1 in the U.S. in digital camera sales that surged 40% to $5.7 billion.Despite the high growth, Kodak failed to anticipate how fast digital cameras became commodities, with low profit margins, as more companies entered the market in the mid-2000s. In 2001, Kodak held the No. 2 spot in U.S. digital camera sales , but lost $60 on every camera sold, while there was also a dispute between employees from its digital and film divisions. The film business, where Kodak enjoyed high profit margins, fell 18% in 2005. The combination of these two factors resulted in disappointing profits overall. Its digital cameras soon became undercut by Asian competitors that could produce their offerings more cheaply. Kodak had a 27% market-leading share in 1999 that dropped to 15% by 2003. In 2007, Kodak was No. 4 in U.S. digital camera sales with a 9.6% share, and by 2010, they held 7% in seventh place behind Canon, Sony, Nikon, and others, according to research firm IDC. Also, an ever-smaller percentage of digital pictures were being taken on dedicated digital cameras, being gradually displaced in the late 2000s by cameras on cellphones, smartphones, and tablets.

New strategy

Kodak then began a strategy shift: while Kodak had previously done everything in-house, CEO Antonio Pérez shut down film factories and eliminated 27,000 jobs as it outsourced its manufacturing. Pérez invested heavily in digital technologies and new services that capitalized on its technology innovation to boost profit margins. He also spent hundreds of millions of dollars to build up a high-margin printer ink business to replace falling film sales. Kodak's ink strategy rejected the razor and blades business model used by dominant market leader Hewlett-Packard in that Kodak's printers were expensive but the ink was cheaper. As of 2011, these new lines of inkjet printers were said to be on verge of turning a profit, although some analysts were skeptical as printouts had been replaced gradually by electronic copies on computers, tablets, and smartphones. Home photograph printers, high-speed commercial inkjet presses, workflow software, and packaging were viewed as the company's new core businesses, with sales from those four businesses projected to double to nearly $2 billion in revenue in 2013 and account for 25% of all sales. However, while Kodak named home printers as a core business as late as August 2012, at the end of September declining sales forced Kodak to announce an exit from the consumer inkjet market.Kodak has also turned to litigation to generate revenue. In 2010, it received $838 million from patent licensing that included a settlement with LG.In 2010, Apple filed a patent-infringement claim against Kodak. On May 12, 2011, Judge Robert Rogers rejected Apple's claims that two of its digital photography patents were being violated by Kodak.On July 1, 2011, the U.S. International Trade Commission partially reversed a January decision by an administrative law judge stating that neither Apple nor Research in Motion had infringed upon Kodak's patents. The ITC remanded the matter for further proceedings before the ALJ.

Bankruptcy

In 2011, despite the turnaround progress, Kodak rapidly used up its cash reserves, stoking fears of bankruptcy; it had $957 million in cash in June 2011, down from $1.6 billion in January 2001. In 2011, Kodak reportedly explored selling off or licensing its vast portfolio of patents to stave off bankruptcy. By January 2012, analysts suggested that the company could enter bankruptcy followed by an auction of its patents, as it was reported to be in talks with Citigroup to provide debtor-in-possession financing. This was confirmed on January 19, 2012, when the company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and obtained a $950 million, 18-month credit facility from Citigroup to enable it to continue operations. Under the terms of its bankruptcy protection, Kodak had a deadline of February 15, 2013, to produce a reorganization plan.In April 2013, Kodak showed its first Micro Four-Thirds camera, to be manufactured by JK Imaging.On September 3, 2013, Kodak announced that it emerged from bankruptcy as a technology company focused on imaging for business. Its main business segments are Digital Printing & Enterprise and Graphics, Entertainment & Commercial Films.On March 12, 2014, Kodak announced that Jeffrey J. Clarke had been named as chief executive officer and a member of its board of directors.On January 1, 2015, Kodak announced a new five business division structure; Print Systems, Enterprise Inkjet Systems, Micro 3D Printing and Packaging, Software and Solutions, and Consumer and Film.

Timeline

1880–1898

April 1880: George Eastman leased the third floor of a building on State Street in Rochester N.Y. and began the commercial manufacture of dry plates.

January 1, 1881: Eastman and businessman Henry A. Strong formed a partnership called the Eastman Dry Plate Company. Eastman resigned his position at the Rochester Savings Bank to work full-time at the Eastman Dry Plate Company.

1884: The Eastman-Strong partnership was dissolved and the Eastman Dry Plate and Film Company formed with 14 shareowners. The Eastman Dry Plate Company was responsible for the first cameras suitable for non-expert use.

1885: George Eastman bought David Houston's patents for roll film and developed them further. These were the basis for the invention of motion picture film, as used by early filmmakers and Thomas Edison.

September 4, 1888: Eastman registered the trademark Kodak.

1888: The first model of the Kodak camera appeared. It took round pictures 6.4 cm in diameter, was of the fixed focus type, and carried a roll of film enough for 100 exposures. Its invention practically marked the advent of amateur photography, as before that time both apparatus and processes were too burdensome to classify photography as recreation. The roll film used in the first model of the Kodak camera had a paper base but was soon superseded by a film with a cellulose base, a practical transparent flexible film. The first films had to be loaded into the camera and unloaded in the dark room, but the film cartridge system with its protecting strip of opaque paper made it possible to load and unload the camera in ordinary light. The Kodak Developing Machine and its simplified successor, the Kodak Film Tank, provided the means for daylight development of film, making the dark room unnecessary for any of the operations of amateur photography. The earlier types of the Kodak cameras were of the box form and of fixed focus, and as various sizes were added, devices for focusing the lenses were incorporated.

1889: The Eastman Company was formed.

1891: Opens its first facility outside the U.S. in Harrow, England .

1891: George Eastman began to produce a second line of cameras, the Ordinary range.

1892: It was renamed the Eastman Kodak Company in 1892. Eastman Kodak Company of New York was organized. He coined the advertising slogan, "You Press the Button, We Do the Rest." The Kodak company thereby attained its name from the first simple roll film cameras produced by Eastman Dry Plate Company, known as the "Kodak" in its product line.

Early 1890s: The first folding Kodak cameras were introduced. These were equipped with folding bellows that permitted much greater compactness.

1895: The first pocket Kodak camera, the $5 Pocket Kodak, was introduced. It was of the box form type, slipping easily into an ordinary coat pocket, and producing negatives 1½ x 2 inches.

1897: The first folding pocket Kodak camera was introduced, and was mentioned in the novel Dracula, published the same year.

1898: George Eastman purchased the patent for Velox photographic paper from Leo Baekeland for $1,000,000. After this time, Velox paper was then sold by Eastman Kodak.

1900–1999

1900: The Brownie camera was introduced, creating a new mass market for photography.

1901: The present company, Eastman Kodak Company of New Jersey, was formed under the laws of that state. Eventually, the business in Jamestown was moved in its entirety to Rochester, and the plants in Jamestown were demolished.

1908: Kodak acquires the exclusive right to supply film stock for the MPPC cartel. A similar attempt to secure an arrangement with European producers at the Paris Film Congress the following year falls through when French courts rule it illegal.

By 1920: An "Autographic Feature" provided a means for recording data on the margin of the negative at the time of exposure. This feature was supplied on all Kodak cameras with the exception of a box camera designed for making panoramic pictures and was discontinued in 1932.

1920: Tennessee Eastman was founded as a wholly owned subsidiary. The company's primary purpose was the manufacture of chemicals, such as acetyls, needed for Kodak's film photography products.

1930: Eastman Kodak Company was added to the Dow Jones Industrial Average index on July 18, 1930. The company remained listed as one of the DJIA companies for the next 74 years, ending in 2004.

1932: George Eastman dies at age 77 on March 14, 1932, taking his own life with a gunshot. The suicide note he leaves behind reads, "To my friends: My work is done. Why wait?"

1935: Kodak introduced Kodachrome, a color reversal stock for movie and slide film.

1936: Kodak branches out into manufacture of hand-grenades.

1940–1944: Eastman Kodak ranked 62nd among United States corporations in the value of World War II military production contracts.

1945: Kodak researchers discover the first ever detonation of an atomic bomb in New Mexico, because a radioactive contaminant was encountered in strawboard material used by the Eastman Kodak Company for packaging photographic sensitive films.

1934–1956: Kodak introduces the Retina Series 35mm Camera

1958: Kodak releases an adhesive called Eastman No. 910. To the public, it is known as Super Glue.

1959: Kodak introduced the Starmatic camera, the first automatic Brownie camera, which sold 10 million units over the next five years.

1963: Kodak introduced the Instamatic camera, an inexpensive, easy-to-load, point-and-shoot camera.

1970: Kodak scientists disclose the continuous wave tunable dye laser. This becomes a product for several high-tech companies but not at Kodak.

1975: Steven Sasson, then an electrical engineer at Kodak, invented a digital camera.

1975: Kodak releases their first plain paper photocopier the Kodak Ektaprint 100 Copier-Duplicator.

1976: The Bayer pattern color filter array was invented by Eastman Kodak researcher Bryce Bayer. The order in which dyes are placed on an image sensor photosite is still in use today. The basic technology is still the most commonly used of its kind to date.

1976: Kodak introduced the first Kodamatic, instant picture cameras, using a similar film and technology to that of the Polaroid company.

1976: The company sold 90% of the photographic film in the US along with 85% of the cameras as well as Kodak introducing a new president to the company, named Robert Moyer. Robert Moyer stayed on the board as a chairman until 1989.

1978: Kodak introduces the Ektachem clinical chemistry testing system. The system employs dry film technology, and within 5 years was being used by most hospitals in the country.

1981: Kodak was sued by Polaroid for infringement of its Instant Picture patents. The suit ran for five years, the court finally finding in favour of Polaroid in 1986.

1982: Kodak launched the Kodak Disc film format for consumer cameras. The format ultimately proved unpopular and was later discontinued.

1986: Kodak scientists created the world's first megapixel sensor, capable of recording 1.4 million pixels and producing a photo-quality 12.5 cm × 17.5 cm print.

1987: Ching W. Tang, a senior research associate, and his colleague, Steven Van Slyke, developed the first multi-layer OLEDs at the Kodak Research Laboratories, for which he later became a Fellow of the Society for Information Display

1988: Kodak buys Sterling Drug for $5.1 Billion

1988: Kodak scientists introduce the coumarin tetramethyl laser dyes also used in OLED devices. These become a successful product until the line of fine chemicals is sold.

1988: Kodak buys IBMs PhotoCopier arm for an undisclosed sum.

1991: The Kodak Professional Digital Camera System or DCS, the first commercially available digital single-lens reflex camera. A customized camera back bearing the digital image sensor was mounted on a Nikon F3 body and released by Kodak in May; the company had previously shown the camera at photokina in 1990.

1993: Eastman Chemical, a Kodak subsidiary founded by George Eastman in 1920 to supply Kodak's chemical needs, was spun off as a separate corporation. Eastman Chemical became a Fortune 500 company in its own right.

1994: Apple Quicktake, a consumer digital camera was debuted by Apple Computer. Some models were manufactured by Kodak.

1996: Kodak sells its photocopier arm to Danka.

2000–2009

2003: Kodak introduced the Kodak EasyShare LS633 Digital Camera, the first camera to feature an AMOLED display, and the Kodak EasyShare Printer Dock 6000, the world's first printer-and-camera dock combination.

November 2003: Kodak acquired the Israel-based company Algotec Systems, a developer of advanced picture archiving and communication systems , which enable radiology departments to digitally manage and store medical images and information.

January 2004: Kodak announced that it would stop selling traditional film cameras in Europe and North America, and cut up to 15,000 jobs .

April 8, 2004: Kodak was delisted from the Dow Jones Industrial Average index, having been a constituent for 74 consecutive years.

May 2004: Kodak signed an exclusive long-term agreement with Lexar Media, licensing the Kodak brand for use on digital memory cards designed, manufactured, sold, and distributed by Lexar.

January 2005: The Kodak EasyShare-One Digital Camera, the world's first Wi-Fi consumer digital camera capable of sending pictures by email, was unveiled at the 2005 CES.

January 2005: Kodak acquired the Israel-based company OREX Computed Radiography, a provider of compact computed radiography systems that enable medical practitioners to acquire patient x-ray images digitally.

January 2005: Kodak acquired the Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada-based company Creo.

January 2006: Kodak unveiled the Kodak EasyShare V570 Dual Lens Digital Camera, the world's first dual-lens digital still camera and smallest ultra-wide-angle optical zoom digital camera, at the CES. Using proprietary Kodak Retina Dual Lens technology, the V570 wrapped an ultra-wide angle lens and a second optical zoom lens into a body less than 2.5 cm thick.

April 2006: Kodak introduced the Kodak EasyShare V610 Dual Lens Digital Camera, at that time the world's smallest 10× optical zoom camera at less than 2.5 cm thick.

August 1, 2006: Kodak agreed to divest its digital camera manufacturing operations to Flextronics, including assembly, production and testing. As part of the sale it was agreed that Flextronics would manufacture and distribute consumer digital cameras for Kodak, and conduct some design and development functions for it. Kodak kept high-level digital camera design in house, continued to conduct research and development in digital still cameras, and retained all intellectual property and patents. Approximately 550 Kodak personnel transferred to Flextronics.

January 10, 2007: Kodak agreed to sell Kodak Health Group to Onex Corporation for $2.35 billion in cash, and up to $200 million in additional future payments if Onex achieved specified returns on the acquisition. The sale was completed May 1. Kodak used part of the proceeds to fully repay its approximately $1.15 billion of secured term debt. Around 8,100 employees transferred to Onex, and Kodak Health Group was renamed Carestream Health. Kodak Health Group had revenue of $2.54 billion for the 12 months to September 30, 2006.

April 19, 2007: Kodak announced an agreement to sell its light management films business, which produced films designed to improve the brightness and efficiency of liquid crystal displays, to Rohm and Haas. The divested business comprised 125 workers. As part of the transaction Rohm and Haas agreed to license technology and purchase equipment from Kodak, and lease Building 318 at Kodak Park. The sale price was not disclosed.

May 25, 2007: Kodak announced a cross-licensing agreement with Chi Mei Optoelectronics and its affiliate Chi Mei EL , enabling CMEL to use Kodak technology for active matrix OLED modules in a variety of small to medium size display applications.

June 14, 2007: Kodak announced a two to fourfold increase in sensitivity to light compared to current sensor designs. This design was a departure from the classic "Bayer filter" by adding panchromatic or "clear" pixels to the RGB elements on the sensor array. Since these pixels are sensitive to all wavelengths of visible light, they collect a significantly higher proportion of the light striking the sensor. In combination with advanced Kodak software algorithms optimized for these new patterns, photographers benefited from an increase in photographic speed , faster shutter speeds , and smaller pixels while retaining performance. The technology was credited to Kodak scientists John Compton and John Hamilton.

September 4, 2007: Kodak announced a five-year extension of its partnership with Lexar Media.

November 2008: Kodak released the Kodak Theatre HD Player, allowing photos and videos stored on a computer to be displayed on an HDTV. Kodak licensed technology from Hillcrest Labs for the interface and pointer, which allowed a user to control the player with gestures.

January 2009: Kodak posted a $137 million fourth-quarter loss and announced plans to cut up to 4,500 jobs.

June 22, 2009: Kodak announced that it would cease selling Kodachrome color film by the end of 2009, ending 74 years of production, after a dramatic decline in sales. This went along with Kodak ceasing operation of the division of Qualex that did film development for retail and commercial customers.

December 4, 2009: Kodak sold its organic light-emitting diode business unit to LG Electronics, resulting in the lay-off of 60 people.

2010–2019

December 2010: Standard & Poor's removed Kodak from its S&P 500 index.

September 2011: Kodak hired law firm Jones Day for restructuring advice and its stock dropped to an all-time low of $0.54 a share. During 2011, Kodak shares fell more than 80 percent.

January 2012: Kodak received a warning from the New York Stock Exchange notifying it that its average closing price was below $1.00 for 30 consecutive days and that over the next 6 months it must increase the closing share price to at least $1 on the last trading day of each calendar month and have an average closing price of at least $1 over the 30 trading-days prior or it would be delisted. From the $90 range in 1997, Kodak shares closed at 76 cents on January 3, 2012. On January 8, 2012, Kodak shares closed over 50% higher after the company announced a major restructuring into two main divisions, one focused on products and services for businesses, and the other on consumer products including digital cameras.

January 19, 2012: Kodak filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. The company's stock was delisted from NYSE and moved to OTC exchange. Following the news it ended the day trading down 35% at $0.36 a share.

February 7, 2012: The Image Sensor Solutions division of Kodak was sold to Truesense Imaging Inc.

February 9, 2012: Kodak announced that it would exit the digital image capture business, phasing out its production of digital cameras. Kodak sees home photo printers, high-speed commercial inkjet presses, workflow software and packaging with GlobalVision software integrated, as the core of its future business. Once the digital camera business is phased out, Kodak said its consumer business will focus on printing. It will seek a company to license its EasyShare digital camera brand.

August 24, 2012: Kodak announced that it plans to sell its film, commercial scanner and kiosk divisions.

September 10, 2012: Kodak announced plans to cut another 1,000 jobs by the end of 2012 and that it is examining further job cuts as it works to restructure its business in bankruptcy.

September 28, 2012: Kodak announced that it is exiting the inkjet printer business.

December 20, 2012: Kodak announced that it plans to sell its digital imaging patents for about $525 million to some of the world's biggest technology companies, thus making a step to end bankruptcy.

April 29, 2013: Kodak announced an agreement with the U.K. Kodak Pension Plan to spin off Kodak's Personalized Imaging and Document Imaging businesses and settle $2.8 Billion in KPP claims.

September 3, 2013: Kodak announces that it has emerged from Chapter 11 Bankruptcy Protection as a company focused on serving commercial customers.

October 17, 2013: Kodak brings European headquarters and the entire EAMER Technology Centre under one roof in Eysins, Switzerland. The relocation brings together the company's European headquarters and Inkjet demo facilities, which were based in Gland, Switzerland, and the Kodak EAMER Technology and Solutions Centre, which was based in La Hulpe, Belgium.

March 12, 2014: Kodak names Jeffrey J. Clarke as its new chief executive officer.

July 30, 2014: Kodak is negotiating with movie studios for an annual movie film order guarantee to preserve the last source of movie film manufacturing in the United States.

December 2014: Kodak announced its first phone, the Kodak Ektra smartphone made by Bullitt Group. The phone was expected to become available in December 2016, initially in Europe.

January 2016: Kodak shows off a prototype of the new Super 8 Camera at CES.

June 2016: Kodak spinoff company eApeiron is founded with assets acquired from Kodak and an investment by Alibaba. The company's mission is to eliminate “knock offs” and promote authenticity. Spearheaded by the company's founder, chairman and CEO Charles M. Fernandez & Eastman Kodak CEO Jeffrey J Clarke

January 2017: Kodak announced it was bringing back its Ektachrome film.

May 2017: Kodak released the Ektra smartphone to the US market.

June 2017: Kodak announced plans to release 7" and 10" tablets with Archos in Europe.

January 2018: Kodak announced plans to launch KodakCoin, a photographer-oriented blockchain cryptocurrency.

September 2018: Kodak announced that the 135 and Super 8 format of Ektachrome is available again, with 16mm available later.

2020–present

July 28, 2020: The Trump administration announced that it planned to give Kodak a $765 million loan for manufacturing ingredients used in pharmaceuticals, to rebuild the national stockpile depleted by the COVID-19 pandemic and reduce dependency on foreign factories. The funding would come through U.S. International Development Finance Corporation, a government agency with international mandate. Within two days, the company's stock price had gained as much as 2,189% from its price at the close of July 27 on the NYSE. The New York Times reported that one day before the White House announced the loan, Kodak CEO Jim Continenza was given 1.75 million stock options, some of which he was able to execute immediately. The funding was put on hold as the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission began probing allegations of insider trading by Kodak executives ahead of the deal's announcement, and the funding agency's inspector general announced scrutiny into the loan terms.

In 2021: Kodak removed a post from its Instagram feed that showed a photo from Xinjiang and made references to the Chinese government's genocide against the Uyghurs. It was removed after Chinese social media users criticized Kodak.