Kodak Concedes Difficulty in Drawing Lead Bidder for Patents

[Photo Engineer]

Several points here:

1. Patents only last for a finite period of time. Usually 18 years.

2. The film and coupler patents are out there, and most have expired. The entire Portra structure is out there.

3. It takes a trained engineering team to understand and reconstruct a film from a patent. You also need a lot of equipment to do it.

4. Patents don't tell everything. Many tiny bits are left out, and these bits are critical and in the mind of the current engineers at Kodak. There are only about 200 of us left living. When we are gone, those little bits are gone as well.

PE

 

[falotico]

Perhaps the cognoscenti can get permission to do an oral history project and just effuse on tape about the various technologies. I realize that this is all propitiatory intellectual property, but it IS in the interest of science to preserve it. People today today don't even know what any of the film manufacturing machines looked like. Imagine how difficult it will be to reconstruct them 100 years from now. Not trying to make any more work for people--just suggesting we do what is reasonable and convenient.

 

[Photo Engineer]

You have missed the discussions where I have explained that the EK people do NOT want to do this.

PE

 

[falotico]

My regrets for the lapse. I will search the past posts.

 

[BrianShaw]

You have missed the discussions where I have explained that the EK people do NOT want to do this.

The company I work for tried that... and still tries. First attempt was scanning everyone's file cabinets and putting that information onto a big server where it cannot be accessed. Then they started having the "senior emertitus engineers/scientists" tell their story verbally -- both taped and in storytelling lunch sessions. All that really did was reveal that these guys who once had brilliant careers have become doddering old fuddy-duddies who were lost in the past with little understanding of how to recreate "the good old days" or, more importantly, do the good work of the past in the new technological and economic conditions. It is a concept that is much better sounding on paper (or on an internet forum) than it is in real life.

 

[SkipA]

So you are saying that re-inventing the wheel is inevitable after all, Brian?

 

[Photo Engineer]

The company I work for tried that... and still tries. First attempt was scanning everyone's file cabinets and putting that information onto a big server where it cannot be accessed. Then they started having the "senior emertitus engineers/scientists" tell their story verbally -- both taped and in storytelling lunch sessions. All that really did was reveal that these guys who once had brilliant careers have become doddering old fuddy-duddies who were lost in the past with little understanding of how to recreate "the good old days" or, more importantly, do the good work of the past in the new technological and economic conditions. It is a concept that is much better sounding on paper (or on an internet forum) than it is in real life.

Brian;

Even the youngest most bright eyed individual worker at EK, or retiree, will not get involved in this kind of work. All formulas are documented and backed up, but in the end, no-one knows the entire formula at any one time AFAIK.

PE