Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2003/07/25
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]>With availability of parts the issue, would Leica sell the old tooling >(assuming it even exists today) to a third party? There are copyright and >control issues as well as a bunch of legal stuff that would likely make this >unattractive to a third party. You can't copyright parts, they don't fall under copyright law. Some manufacturers try to protect their parts with patents (c.f. the Big Three) but the courts have taken a dim view unless it's something really original. I.e., you can't patent a wind lever unless it is doing something novel. Anyway, patents only last 17 years from the date of patent. So anything pre-M6 TTL is no longer under patent protection. Which is why Kanto Corp in Japan can manufacture lika-Leica parts for all they want. Karen Nakamura www.photoethnography.com - -- To unsubscribe, see http://mejac.palo-alto.ca.us/leica-users/unsub.html