[carlb]

But that does not say who developed/designed the lens. It only says that Ricoh holds the patent. Suppose that Ricoh asked a third party to develop a certain lens and that in the agreement it is stated that Ricoh owns the design and has the right to patent the design but that third party may use it to develop a lens under its own brand and is not allowed to market that lens in a K-mount? It is not uncommon to have such contracts. It is frequently used in the IT-world. So why not in developing lenses.It is just a thought and I may be far off the mark, but it is a possibility. It saves Ricoh a lot of R&D money. With advantages for both companies. Ricoh owning the design and the third party the only one that is allowed to use that design. Nice way to sell your lens to people that use camera's by Canon, Nikon or Sony and at the same time preventing those three to make fully or partially use of the design. As I wrote, I could be off the mark, but it is a means to survive in this hectic economy.

You're kidding aren't you?? Sounds like you should be over at DPR.

[swanlefitte]

Look at post #722 follow up around #730
Development update regarding the HD PENTAX-D FA★50mmF1.4 SDM AW - Page 49 - PentaxForums.com

[monochrome]

Hypothesis: Ricoh Imaging researched, designed, developed and manufactures the HD Pentax-D FA* 1:1.4 50mm lens.

1. Occam’s Razor or Law of Parsimony.
2. There is no 2

[UncleVanya]

I'm not a patent lawyer but I've been involved in about 30-40 of them in recent years as an "inventor" (patent language not a qualification) and I can safely say my employer not me owns the patent. They could easily have employed another company to create patents for them, and they could assume the ownership but somewhere there would be some paper trail... But that might not be public.

What about Pentax? As stated all info points to them being the designers. Why on earth would anyone suppose the opposite is true? They have not exactly hidden past collaborations and they have a history of licensing designs to others on occasion.

[zapp]

Ask an irrelevant question and try to prove your answer one way or the other.
My standard answer is: the penguins did it.

[Joetitch]

And I am positive that sigma designed the limiteds.
(Not really)

[monochrome]

I'm not a patent lawyer but I've been involved in about 30-40 of them in recent years as an "inventor" (patent language not a qualification) and I can safely say my employer not me owns the patent. They could easily have employed another company to create patents for them, and they could assume the ownership but somewhere there would be some paper trail... But that might not be public.

What about Pentax? As stated all info points to them being the designers. Why on earth would anyone suppose the opposite is true? They have not exactly hidden past collaborations and they have a history of licensing designs to others on occasion.

They would not produce a Development Story featuring the lens design team if they outsourced the lens design work. They even say they developed the SDM ring motor.

For an antagonist to say “We Developed” is merely semantics - that Tokna did the actual work but Pentax can legally claim the work since they own the patent - is beyond an unreasonable argument. To me such an accusation is tantamount to claiming Ricoh is outright boldly and arrogantly lying on the product page for the DFA*50/1.4 (and now also on the DFA85/1.4 page).

@AfterPentax It is very simple. They developed the lens In house. There is no reasonable argument that they did not develop the lens in house. Repeated claims or speculations they did not develop the lens in house amount to intentional and malicious industrial sabotage.

---

Last edited by monochrome; 06-27-2020 at 06:27 AM.

[angerdan]

Look at post #722 follow up around #730
Development update regarding the HD PENTAX-D FA★50mmF1.4 SDM AW - Page 49 - PentaxForums.com

Great find!
pentaxforums.com/forums/16-pentax-news-rumors/363978-development-update-regarding-hd-pentax-d-fa-50mmf1-4-sdm-aw-10.html#post5018799

[RobA_Oz]

So Ricoh and another company conspired to make it look like Pentax designed a lens they didn’t actually design? Seriously, what’s the motivation?

Some people are so feverswamp warped they’ll believe any crazy, irrational theory to justify their Anti-Pentax bias. Or some desperate mirrorless manufacturer is paying them to be a Social Media Negative Influencer - and yes, that is a real social media marketing tactic.

What makes it even less probable is subcontracting the design to Tokina, and then licensing the design back to Tokina. That only makes sense from Tokina’s viewpoint if they lacked the resource to fund their own design and if the license fees amounted to less than the design costs. Of course, there’s no evidence of such an arrangement, but that won’t stop the trolls. There are even more unlikely tales on social media, and no shortage of gullible people ready to believe them.

Negative Influencer? Every office has one, so we shouldn’t be surprised it’s now a social media occupation.

Are you suggesting this as a possible weakness in the proof supplied or as an actual possibility? The first might hold water, the second doesn't.

"as a possible weakness in the proof supplied" That is what I meant. Holding a patent is not proof that you developed or designed something. But I can imagine that companies work together to lower the costs of R&D, that is not uncommon. It is also stated that Ricoh used a third party for their 18-270 and that that lens was tweaked to comply with Ricoh/Pentax standards. Pentax made the 18-55 and 50-200 for Samsung camera's and the lenses were tweaked to comply with Schneider-Kreuznach standards.

[BarneyL]

Ricoh decided to rebrand 3 Tamrons and now everyone thinks that Pentax doesn't design their own lenses anymore. Even the 21mm Limited that's only been shown as a prototype has already been compared to Tamron's 20mm (which is mirrorless design, but who cares about that, right?).

I wonder if I ever see a new Pentax lens announcement that won't be accompanied by "is it Tokina/Tamron/Sigma/Meyer Optik Goerlitz" questions.

[johnha]

Intellectual Property Rights are often the only valuable items remaining when companies fail. It makes no sense to not own a patent for something you invent (if granted). If somebody else wants to use the invention, you would consider licensing them to do so and not the other way round.

In the past Pentax & Ricoh have both modified their own lenses for Leica mounts in limited production (FA43 Special & GR28/2.8 from the GR1). For larger production in a 'non-competing' situation, licensing someone else to use the design could be very lucrative without the aggro of various other costs & headaches.

[Kunzite]

Dpreview users questioning Pentax?

We can't convince them with a patent... I've been told, patent doesn't matter, all the work was done by Tokina, which filled the patent on Ricoh's behalf.
Oh wait. We have the same theory here as well
We can't convince them with any proof.

But, let's summarize what we know once again, even though it's nothing new:
In favor of Ricoh Imaging developing this lens:
- we have at least a patent (likely several, not only optics but e.g. the strengthened barrel - but I'm not able to verify that I'm afraid).
- we have the development team's interview on the special page, taking proudly about the lens and the difficulties they encountering during its design.
- Ricoh Imaging still has a sizable R&D department. You can see in the special sites' interviews how there are teams of people working in the various areas, that's not science fiction folks, it's real people doing real work. There are jokes about the sole remaining lens developer, but they have e.g. several people in charge of the SDM motor.

In favor of Tokina developing this lens:
......
Well, nothing really. No Tokina-assigned patent. No developer raising his hand, "hey, I worked on this". It's even doubtful they are making their own version, the Tokina 50mm Opera, themselves. And if they had much larger R&D capabilities, why are they rebadging Viltrox?
How about that guys bringing some proof, one, anything, that it is a Tokina design - for a change? They won't? Then they can go and... ugh, I'm so tempted to use Geralt's first wish...

Anyway, this is much like Moon landing deniers... twisted logic, rejecting any proof, people who worked on these lenses are liars.
They are like this guy:

You Tube

You Tube

[swanlefitte]

Isn't it also funny how pentax doesn't hide the fact they rebranded the tamron lenses but they go out of their way to "cover up" this "tokina" ownership.

The fact no one thinks it is designed by canon is all the proof i need to know canon contracted tokina to get pentax to pay to design a lens and then lease the design back to tokina and have tokina use pentax plants so that canon has a decent third party lens to make their line up look more robust without showing they are bleeding money and showing a commitment to slrs despite going mostly into mirrorless. Isn't it obvious?

[RobA_Oz]

Isn't it also funny how pentax doesn't hide the fact they rebranded the tamron lenses but they go out of their way to "cover up" this "tokina" ownership.

The fact no one thinks it is designed by canon is all the proof i need to know canon contracted tokina to get pentax to pay to design a lens and then lease the design back to tokina and have tokina use pentax plants so that canon has a decent third party lens to make their line up look more robust without showing they are bleeding money and showing a commitment to slrs despite going mostly into mirrorless. Isn't it obvious?

You forgot Zeiss’s role, where they put the green CA into it, so it wouldn't compete with their 50.