George Eastman was 15 years old. The young George left school early and started working to help support the family. As Eastman began to have success with his photography business, he vowed to repay his mother for the hardships she had endured in raising him. In 1884, Eastman patented the first film in roll form to prove practicable; he had been tinkering at home to develop it. In 1888, he perfected the Kodak Black camera, which was the first camera designed to use roll film. In 1889 he first offered film stock, and by 1896 became the leading supplier of film stock
Kodak 789 F.2d 1556 [229 USPQ 561] (Fed. Cir.), cert. denied, 479 U.S. 850 (1986). Kodak was the exclusive supplier of negatives for Polaroid cameras from 1963 until 1969, when Polaroid chose to manufacture its own instant film. As part of its move toward higher end products, Kodak announced on September 15, 2006 that the new Leica M8 camera incorporates Kodak's KAF-10500 image sensor. This was the second recent partnership between Kodak and the German optical manufacturer. In 2011, Kodak sold its Image Sensor Solutions business to Platinum Equity, which subsequently renamed it Truesense Imaging, Inc. Many of Kodak's early compact