Originally posted by Asahiflex No; they would buy Pentax for the patents alone, and then cease camera and lens production (of Pentax and Pentax lenses) completely. One competitor less to worry about!
Except, maybe some optical formulas and body details might appear in their packages.
From the other hand.. as a niche system, simply killing the brand won't make most user base jump to their. Many would split between Olympus and Sony because of similar functionality (high quality optics, built-in SR). But i don't expect legacy support from those big fish either.
I expect canon *might* make the very entry level body with builtin SR. But leave all other without (the ones that might be seen used with L lenses).
In reality this is just a rumor. Most likely not true anymore. Probably from the times, when Hoya bought Pentax, there were other interested. Currently, when Pentax has been heavily reformed and generating Profit, i Hoya thinks of dropping/selling the brand.