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Eastman Kodak, the 131-year-old film pioneer that has been struggling for years to adapt to an increasingly digital world, filed for bankruptcy protection early on Thursday.

The American legend had tried a number of turnaround strategies and cost-cutting efforts in recent years, but the company — which since 2004 has reported only one full year of profit — ran short of cash.

“Since 2008, despite Kodak’s best efforts, restructuring costs and recessionary forces have continued to negatively impact the company’s liquidity position, ” Kodak’s chief financial officer, Antoinette P. McCorvey, said in a court filing on Thursday.

Citigroup is providing Kodak with $950 million in financing to allow the company to keep going. Kodak plans to continue operating normally during bankruptcy.

The company will also seek to continue selling a portfolio of 1,100 digital imaging patents to raise cash for its loss-making operations.

Kodak has become the latest giant to falter in the face of advancing technology. The Borders Group liquidated last year after having failed to gain a toehold in e-books, while Blockbuster sold itself to Dish Network last year as its retail outlets lost ground to online competitors like Netflix.

Founded in 1880 by George Eastman, Kodak became one of America’s most notable companies, helping establish the market for camera film and then dominating the field. But it has suffered from a variety of problems over the last four decades.

First came foreign competitors, notably Fujifilm of Japan, which undercut Kodak’s prices. Then the onset of digital photography eroded demand for traditional film, squeezing Kodak’s business so much that in 2003 the company said that it would halt investing in its longtime product.

The Chapter 11 filing was made in United States Bankruptcy Court in Lower Manhattan. Kodak said that its non-American subsidiaries were not part of the filing.

The company said that it had about $5.1 billion in assets and nearly $6.8 billion in debts. Its biggest group of unsecured creditors are bondholders represented by the Bank of New York Mellon who are owed $658 million.

“Kodak is taking a significant step toward enabling our enterprise to complete its transformation,” Antonio M. Perez, the company’s chief executive, said in a news release. “At the same time as we have created our digital business, we have also already effectively exited certain traditional operations, closing 13 manufacturing plants and 130 processing labs, and reducing our workforce by 47,000 since 2003. Now we must complete the transformation by further addressing our cost structure and effectively monetizing non-core I.P. assets.”

Under Mr. Perez, who joined Kodak from Hewlett-Packard in 2003, the company has bet on inkjet printers. That strategy has yet to bear fruit, however.

It has also turned to patent lawsuits to generate revenue, winning settlements from the likes of LG of South Korea.

Jonathan Fickies/Bloomberg News

Nonetheless, the company has burned through its cash reserves, stoking concerns that it may run out of money. As of Sept. 30, Kodak reported having $900 million in cash and short-term investments.

As a last-ditch effort to raise cash, Kodak announced last July that it had hired Lazard to sell its digital imaging patents, hoping to cash in on a frenzy for intellectual property that drove Google‘s $12.5 billion takeover of Motorola Mobility. But the company had failed to garner enough interest among potential buyers, driven in part by fears of Kodak’s deteriorating financial health.

But by the fall, it became apparent that Kodak was also preparing for a potential Chapter 11 filing, hiring advisers who could help with a court-supervised restructuring. As reports swirled about Kodak’s preparations for bankruptcy, some of the company’s vendors stopped providing services or demanding quicker payments, the company said in a court filing on Thursday.

Besides potentially aiding in the patent sale, bankruptcy protection could also allow Kodak to shed hundreds of millions of dollars in pension obligations. Kodak said in a filing that it contributed about $245 million to its United States pension obligations last year, and that it has been unable to shrink those liabilities to a more manageable level.

Earlier this month, Kodak announced a corporate overhaul that split its businesses into consumer and commercial segments, which some analysts said could aid in the sale of parts of the business.

The company has also filed new patent infringement suits against a number of competitors, including Fujifilm and Apple Inc., an effort to shore up the value of the patents it hopes to sell.

In a court filing, Kodak argued that Apple, the BlackBerry device maker Research in Motion and HTC of Taiwan all owed the company “substantial royalties” for the use of its patents in their smartphones. Reaching licensing agreements with these companies, as Kodak has done with Motorola and LG, could reap Kodak substantial fees.

Kodak is being advised by Lazard, FTI Consulting and the law firm Sullivan & Cromwell. The company said that Dominic DiNapoli, vice chairman of FTI Consulting, would serve as chief restructuring officer during Chapter 11.

Eastman Kodak’s Chapter 11 petition

Kodak C.F.O.’s declaration