Everything about Kodachrome film is in the public domain except the brand name. Nothing stops anyone from manufacturing the film and setting up a plant to process it. You couldn't call it "Kodachrome", but you could say "film based on the same design which captured these famous images" and show the color frame of the flag-raising on Iwo Jima or the Zapruder Film or whatever you can get.
Kodachrome was the first monopack, chromogenic film and it has a simple design. At its most basic: top layer--a blue sensitive emulsion which can be made without a sensitizing dye; second layer--yellow filter made out of Cary Lea silver which itself is yellow in color; third layer--green sensitive emulsion (this can be sensitive to blue/green because the blue light will be filtered out by the Cary Lea silver) which can also be made without a sensitizing dye; red sensitive layer--this requires a sensitizing dye which is still sold by Sands, SDA3057. These layers are the bare bones of Kodachrome. You can include plain gelatin between the emulsion layers and add an anti-halation coating on the back. which is made out of gelatin and lamp-black (graphite).
APUG members have already figured out how to develop Kodachrome in color. Scale it up for a commercial plant! Go to Kickstarter or some other source of funds. If you think this film is valuable why not go into the business yourself? I guarantee that if you start making money on the film Kodak will consider reintroducing it themselves.
Yes thats right, Kodachrome is a very simple 3 layer B&W film essentially. Its the processing thats complicated.
I agree if people want Kodachrome back badly that they should easily start a kickstarter page to contract someone such as inoviscoat do a batch im sure, more funds would also be needed for chemistry and reviving an old K-lab or building new equipment.
Your also right about the brand name, there were others such as Dynachrome that were essentially the same film that were produced after Kodak's patents expired, 3M/Ferrania bought out the company and took over some time later.
Question for PE, you mention that the smaller coaters still have alot of wastage, thats understandable.
Do you have any ideas on how Ferrania are working around this with their narrow coater?
I know they actually plan on upgrading their coater by lengthening the drying cabinets.
Im amazed they can actually do this with those parts from a totally different coater designed for wider rolls of film etc.
Im sure with enough brains people will work around these issues, people need to think outside the square, and Kodak employed many clever minds, but alot such as yourself have left.
People need to brainstorm and work together to make advancements, or else colour analog photography will have no future.
I myself dont feel there will be any issues here, just perhaps only one type of film worst case scenario.
