Bob Blakely wrote: So, if they bought the rights to a commercial process, who did they buy these rights from?
OCLI evidently developed the coating techniques with its own money. >From The unofficial Asahi Pentax Spotmatic Home Page http://212.187.14.19/lenses.htm : The first of the SMC Takumar lenses. Pentax was the first to use Multicoating on their lenses in 1971. The company's marketing department incorrectly stated that they invented the multicoating. This is not true; this coating method was developed by an American company called OCLI (Optical Coating Laboratories, Inc.) and was used for coating space suits and moon landers for the NASA (both the space suits and the famous "Eagle" moon lander which landed on the moon in 1969 were coated by OCLI). AOCO obtained a license from this company to use this method on the Takumar lenses. The SMC Coating consists of seven separate layers which together reduce both flare and excessive light loss. However, other sources report the Cuper-Multi-Coating was developed together with Zeiss, and in fact both Asahi and Zeiss were co-operating those days about lens design. Zeiss also introduced multicoating on their lenses in 1971, perhaps a few months later than Asahi. It's also worth noting that Zeiss and Asahi had both lenses that were very similar in design, namely the 15mm f/3.5 in 1972 and the 28mm f/2 in 1976. >From the Olympus archives at >http://zuiko.sls.bc.ca/swright/archives/1999/msg05087.html William Sommerwerck <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: >"Pentax has the best lens coating technology of any manufacturer. They hold the >basic patents for the most effective MC formulation." >To the best of my knowledge, this is not true. The original MC patents were held >by Optical Coating Laboratories of America (OCLA). Pentax licensed the patents >from them. I know nothing about current patents. Perhaps someone else can fill >us in. Optical Coating Labs (NASDAQ:OCLI) is still a major player in optical coatings -- I don't see any reference to photo equipment in their current annual report, but they do license their patents to other companies as well as doing manufacturing. The growth of computers and communications has added a lot to their markets -- they make GlareGuard brand glare screens, OEM monitor faceplates, anti-reflective flat panels for LCD displays, fiber optics, etc. They're also one of the companies in the partnership that makes the shifting-color ink used on the new U.S. banknote series. I doubt any photographic company can put as much research into optical coatings as a $200 million/year optical coatings specialist. >From http://www.photo90.it/Pentax%20parte%20II%C2%B0.htm : Anche il trattamento multistrato, pur non essendo un invenzione Asahi, verrà per la prima volta esteso a tutta la produzione costringendo ben presto la concorrenza a fare altrettanto. Come spesso succede, la tecnologia era conosciuta, ma rimaneva relegata ai campi scientifici o militari, finchè la Asahi acquisì i diritti sull'esclusivo brevetto della OCLI, un laboratorio americano di ricerca ottica noto anche ai giorni nostri per la tecnologia degli schermi antiradiazioni per monitor da computer. [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] -------------------------------------------------------------------- mail2web - Check your email from the web at http://mail2web.com/ . - This message is from the Pentax-Discuss Mail List. To unsubscribe, go to http://www.pdml.net and follow the directions. Don't forget to visit the Pentax Users' Gallery at http://pug.komkon.org .
