George Eastman recognized a good idea when he saw one, and that was certainly the case with the Boston Camera Mfg. Co.'s Bull’s-Eye camera (see that page). At first, he regarded the Bull’s-Eye’s innovative design as a threat to his own line of cameras and tried to hinder its production on legal grounds, claiming that it infringed on Eastman patents. When that approach did not succeed, Eastman changed course and started to use the design himself. The resulting camera was called the No. 2 Bullet.
The only difference between Kodak’s Bullet and the original Bull’s-Eye camera was the shutter ; the rest of the Bullet was a direct copy. Consequently, in 1895 lawyers of the Boston Camera Manufacturing Company informed Eastman Kodak that the Bullet infringed on two counts: the Houston front-roll patents (526,445 and 526,446) and the Turner daylight film patent (539,713). Negotiations resulted in Eastman securing a license for the Turner patent. It didn’t take long before Eastman realized it would be far more profitable to own the patent than to pay licensing fees. Hence, on August 10, 1895 Eastman Kodak Company bought the Boston Camera Manufacturing Company outright from Samuel Turner for $22,000 plus the value of the latter’s inventory.
To George Eastman’s disappointment, the Houston patents were not included in the deal because of stipulations in the original license contract between Turner and Houston. Eastman was not a man to be stopped easily, and he simply continued to manufacture the Bullet, the Bull’s-Eye, and his Pocket Kodak cameras, which also used the three innovations present in the Bull’s Eye. With Eastman Kodak’s 1895 acquisition of the Boston Camera Manufacturing Company, production of the Boston Bull’s-Eye came to an end. However, the camera continued to be manufactured under the name No. 2 Bull’s-Eye Kodak.