[rollei_list] Re: OT: Kwannon Prototype
- From: "Richard Knoppow" <dickburk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <rollei_list@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 21 Jul 2010 15:30:38 -0700
----- Original Message -----
From: "David Sadowski" <dsadowski@xxxxxxxxx>
To: <rollei_list@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Wednesday, July 21, 2010 2:02 PM
Subject: [rollei_list] Re: OT: Kwannon Prototype
Well, Peter Dechert can certainly speak for himself, and
I'll try to
search out what he's written on the subject since his
Canon
Rangefinder book came out.
There is only one bit of information I can ad about
Japanese camera
companies, and patents. In the late 1980s I had a
discussion with the
late Torkel Korling, photographer and inventor.
He told me that the Japanese camera manufacturers refused
to pay him a
royalty on his automatic diaphragm patent, and they simply
waited
until the patent expired and then they put all sorts of
SLRs on the
market using his invention.
The only problem with this narrative is the timeline. I
think his
original patent was issued around 1933 and therefore would
have
expired in 1950. But there were some additional patents
circa 1940-41
that were assigned to Graflex for further development of
the same idea
(I recall the new patents dealt with such things as
interchangeable
lenses and flash synchronization).
An assignment means he had some kind of financial
arrangement with
Graflex. They got the use of his invention and he got
some cash. I
don't know if this was a lump sum payment, or so much per
camera (and
the camera in question was the RB Super D series).
If he was talking about the later patents, they would have
expired
circa 1957-58, which is exactly the time period when
Japanese
manufacturers started coming out with SLRs. It would make
less sense
if he was talking about the earlier patent.
That brings up the question of when the Pentax SLRs came
out. The
Asahiflex was introduced in 1952 and the Pentax in 1957.
The Pentax
had a quick return mirror, the earlier camera did not.
The Korling
patents did not cover a quick return mirror.
---
Rollei List
I searched for patents issued to Torkel Korling using
Google Patents. The earliest is 2 929 038 issued in 1933,
which describes a complete automatic diaphragm mechanism and
the means of operating the shutter and mirror of a Graflex
type SLR. There are a bunch more patents covering various
improvments in this system mostly issued in 1940. One at
least has a drawing of the exact mechanism built by Kodak
for Graflex and used on the Super-D.
At the time these were issued patents had a life of 17
years from the date of issue so that the 1933 patent, the
earliest, would have expired in 1950, but this was not
exactly the mechanism used by Graflex, that was covered in
the 1940 patents which expired in 1957. The problem with
patents is that those issued in one country may not apply in
others unless there is a definite treaty covering them.
Also, a patent only give the right to challenge others who
appear to be infringing it in court. That can be a long,
expensive, and uncertain process. So, its quite possible
that Japanese camera makers managed to find a way to work
around valid patents even though effectively infringing
them.
--
Richard Knoppow
Los Angeles, CA, USA
dickburk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
---
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