Just a thought...
Maybe revenues from the patents were lower in recent years due to Kodak's anticipation of selling the patents. Maybe they didn't want to hurt the final sale price of the patents by pursuing any further or new licensing agreements. If these patents ARE all that, maybe Kodak saying, "maybe we'll keep 'em" is a BIG deal.
With Kodak not pursuing patent infringement and licensing overly aggressively more recently, these big company's have been pretty comfy keeping these patents in a peaceful middle ground (I think Mic put it best when he compared this in terms of countries and nukes). If Apple/Google are considering all joining together, they are trying to keep these patents on peaceful middle ground for cheap. Kodak is saying, "no, this won't work for us. If we keep them, we'll use them." maybe this is less of a retraction on the sale and more of a threat, with a hidden message.
Maybe Kodak can cut a deal with a patent troll to pursue infringement and licensing aggressively...
I don't know how this might help us in the short term, apart from Kodak's threat being appreciated for what it really is and driving the bids up.
If these patents are strong enough to block imports, these guys can't settle for anyone else owning them... Including Kodak... who they can't get to join their consortium.
Just me thinking out loud....
AI
