Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1998/05/11
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Mark, Discussing patent rights after a world holocaust is like discussing virginity amoung whores. All U.S. Leitz and Zeiss patents were seized by the U.S. government as enemy property during WW2. The government authorized use of those patents to U.S. concerns (Kardon camera, Zeiss pattern binoculars by Bausch and Lomb, GAF Anscochrome film). Japan was occupied by U.S. forces from 1945 through 1952 and the Japanese optical industry was restablished under control of the occupation government. American funds and production equipment were used to jump start the economy. The Marshall Plan did the same for Germany. Japanese cameras and optical equipment were marked "Made in Occupied Japan" until 1952. Remember who started WW2 and who won it. Furthermore the hegemony that Japan enjoys in the photographic industry did not spring full blown from the brow of General MacArthur. The Japanese earned it by producing innovative equipment at an affordable cost while the German industry dissipated its presence by clinging to outmoded designs which could not compete economically in the marketplace. It is the consumer who decides the fate of the industry, not you or I. After all, if it was the only best equipment that decided the outcome, we would all be using a Macintosh computer. Finally, optical design is a relatively mature art. Most lenses marketed today are derivatives of only a few basic designs dating from the late 1800s and early 1900s. Patents covering these designs have long since expired. Specifically these include the Petzval portrait lens (1840); von Hoegh's Georz Dagor (1893); Gauss type symmetrical lenses including Rudolph's Planar (1896), and wide aperture Gauss derivatives such as Lee's Opic (1921), Merte's Biotar (1924) and the Leitz Summar (1934). The most influential lens of all was the revolutionary Taylor triplet (1893), the grandaddy of the Tessar, the Xenar, the Elmar, most lenses used on P&S cameras, and ultimately the Sonnar. There is no shortage of good lens designs nor are there any secret optical computing techniqies. Prior art is so extensive that any company will have difficulty proving patent violation and few try. Zeiss, in fact, had the reputation of appropriating foreign designs and incorporating them into Zeiss products without acknowledgement or royalties prior to WW2. What goes around, comes around. The only reason why Zeiss created the complex innards of the Contax was that Leitz had German and worldwide patents on the mechanisms of the Leica and had prempeted all the simple solutions. I have disassembled and repaired a Contax I and I assure you that it is a machinist's nightmare. No sensible optical engineer would design a camera that way. Nikon clearly had the right idea in scrapping the Contax shutter and adopting a modified Leica (1932) design. Let me repeat myself. During the period I was in Korea (1951-1953), the Japanese equipment was simply better. Now I love my Leica equipment (and some Contax equipment too) but I see it for what it is, beautifully made artifacts representing the best of mid century machine technology. The world has changed, perhaps not for the better, but Leica has not. Incidentally, the generally accepted dates of the Korean war are from 1950, when North Koreas invaded the South, to 1953, when the Korean armistice was signed in Panmunjom. The states of North and South Korea were established in 1948. I believe the first f2.0 Nikkor lenses were not made until 1949 and the f1.4 not until later. So what were these guys using in 1947? Regards - LarryZ