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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Kevin Purcell" data-source="post: 1316438" data-attributes="member: 68323">It all depends on the ODM/OEM agreement. If Vortex have an exclusive license then the ODM/OEM can't reuse the design for others. If the license is not exclusive then the same or a similar (a derived design) can be made for other resellers. There's no "slipping out designs" without breaking the contract but they may have the same design family (with menu choices for features) for other companies.I believe (from other info on the other thread) that the ODM/OEM in this case makes some Vortex (Diamondback, at least), Bushnell (Excursion, at least), Hawke (this Frontier ED) and, probably, Promaster ED too. So one might expect to see the related designs elsewhere.You define innovation to mean what you want it to mean (why not "that which is done by a major brand name"). Cost reduction, manufacturing and production engineering innovations are just as much innovations as design innovations (which are in short supply in the optics world). The most recent innovations of the Alpha bins have been the use of very-low dispersion glass in the objectives and ergonomic design changes. Before that the major innovations were phase-compensation in 1988 and multi-layer AR coatings in late 1970s/early 1980s. The other are innovations in the same glass as design optimization, coatings refinement or production engineering.In a previous post you said that Nikon and Leupold GR (Gold Ring) I presume don't use OEMs. They do. They don't maybe don't use ODMs (though even then I'm not so sure). But they both use Japanese OEMs to make their bins. Like a lot of big manufacturers they don't own their own factories: Apple is an example of this.The next year or so should be very interesting.</blockquote>

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