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Is Minolta making digital cameras again?

Started May 25, 2017 | Discussions thread
neilt3
neilt3 Veteran Member • Posts: 3,008
Re: Is Minolta making digital cameras again?
1

FrancoD wrote:

Rebadging , including by leading brands, has been going on for a long time.

Most often it isn't noticed by the consumer and sometime not even the importers of that product are aware of it.

At one point, Sanyo, now called Xacti, was making more than half of the digital cameras sold.

Sony, Minolta, Pentax, Nikon, Olympus and many others had cameras made by Sanyo.

It would appear that this isn't a case of re-branding though .

Re-branding is when another firm manufactures items under licence for your well known brand , in this case Minolta , as has happened in the past .

This doesn't appear to be the case here .

There was a long thread that the MOD's deleted that started on the Sony A mount forum that then got transferred to the KM forum about this .

It would appear that Elite Brands went to court with "KonicaMinolta" to claim the "Minolta" brand as an abandoned trademark so they could use it on one of their own products ( not cameras ) , and the court agreed .

It would then seem that they must have thought "we'll slap it on our cameras now " as KM are unlikely to contest this again .

If that is what happened it would mislead the public into believing that they are buying a "Minolta" camera with a long heritage of the Minolta / KonicaMinolta camera firm .

Which in many people's views that would be a dishonest trading practice , even if not illegal .

.

This issue was being looked into by Helen at Adorama , at least up until the thread being deleted .

What their solicitors and Helen discovered or concluded we don't know , but these "Minolta" branded cameras are still on sale at Adorama , which indicates no law is being broken by Elite Brands .

.

Whether Elite Brands have any business connection with KonicaMinolta to produce a camera with the "Minolta" brand is unknown .

KM certainly does not acknowledge these cameras on their website , nor have anything to do with warranties .

Make your own mind up .

.

I've chose my words carefully , so hopefully this post and thread won't also be deleted .

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