Familiar Names But Not What You Think

Great article in DPREVIEW (Dec. 7 issue)  I don't think we're allowed to link magazine articles but worth checking out.  It seems many old familiar camera names are re-appearing in the marketplace: Minolta, Yashika, Rollei, Vivitar, even Kodak but they actually have no connection whatsoever to the original companies.  Most of these companies either went out of business altogether or were bought out like Sony buying Konica-Minolta and by so doing, had rights to the trademarks.  It seems that US trademark law does not allow a company that owns a trademark to sit on it and not use it.  If a trademark is allowed to go dormant with no products being produced under the name. it apparently goes up for grabs.  Some slick marketing companies claim the trademark and start licensing out products under that name. For instance, the budget Chinese 7Artisans lenses are appearing with the ROLLEI name.  The article is worth a read.