Eastman Kodak Co.’s patent auction has failed to generate the premium bids that the company and creditors had hoped for, with some suitors leaving Manhattan for home in the past few days, people familiar with the matter said.
All the bids received for Kodak’s portfolio of 1,100 digital patents thus far were significantly below $500 million, as consortiums that include Apple Inc. and Google Inc. declined to engage in the sort of spirited bidding that drove up prices in an auction of Nortel Networks Inc. patents a year ago, the people said.