Ex-Kodak Exec Had Key Plans, Report Says

A man accused of stealing Eastman Kodak Co. trade secrets had what amounts to a recipe book of the company’s secret formulas for film manufacturing, according to newly released court documents.

The documents unsealed Friday by a U.S. District Court judge in Rochester contain new details about proprietary materials allegedly gathered by Harold C. Worden, who retired from Kodak in 1992 to become a consultant.

However, the papers do not contain any disclosures about the Kodak competitors that allegedly purchased the secrets from Worden, according to Saturday’s editions of the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle and Times Union. The newspapers filed a motion earlier this month with U.S. District Judge Michael Tedesca asking that the documents be unsealed.

Kodak alleges Worden profited from his inside knowledge of film manufacturing trade secrets and by buying confidential data from his successor and 63 former Kodak colleagues. Kodak has filed a racketeering lawsuit against Worden, who has denied violating any laws in his business dealings.

Thousands of pages of documents were recovered from his home office in South Carolina in May, when the FBI executed a search warrant. The newly unsealed court papers claim that among those materials were:

* The book containing every secret Kodak manufacturing formula, including details of the chemical makeup of film base and coatings.

* A 5-inch-thick book of confidential specifications for a $500-million film sensitizing facility, where light-sensitive emulsions are applied to film.

* A printed collection of secret trouble-shooting procedures for the manufacture of acetate, from which film base is made, and a separate collection of techniques for inspecting and testing finished film base.

The court papers also emphasize Worden’s close involvement in film manufacturing at Rochester-based Kodak. He was one of a handful of people in charge of designing, building and breaking in the company’s newest film-base manufacturing machine.

Kodak became aware of Worden’s alleged activities in 1994 after executives at Konica and Agfa told Kodak that Worden had approached them.