Snapping up Kodak

In January 2012, Kodak filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, having succumbed to a digital revolution in photography that it had helped to start. But the company's managers still hoped to escape from bankruptcy and have another shot at greatness by selling part of a portfolio of patents that experts valued as high as US $4.5 billion. Eleven months later, those roughly 1700 patents (together with 655 patent applications) sold for just $94 million-less than the licensing fees Kodak had collected in its worstever year in recent history. What's more, the company licensed its remaining 20 000 patents to a dozen leading technology companies for only $433 million, severely restricting future earnings from them.