ADOX
Encyclopedia
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
company, Fotowerke Dr. C. Schleussner GmbH
Gesellschaft mit beschränkter Haftung
Gesellschaft mit beschränkter Haftung is a type of legal entityvery common in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and other Central European countries...
of Frankfurt am Main, the world's first photographic materials manufacturer. The company's founder, Dr. Carl Schleussner, did pioneering work on the wet-collodion process
Collodion process
The collodion process is an early photographic process. It was introduced in the 1850s and by the end of that decade it had almost entirely replaced the first practical photographic process, the daguerreotype. During the 1880s the collodion process, in turn, was largely replaced by gelatin dry...
during the early years of photography, and formed his manufacturing company in 1860. Working with the physicist Wilhelm Röntgen, discoverer of X-ray
X-ray
X-radiation is a form of electromagnetic radiation. X-rays have a wavelength in the range of 0.01 to 10 nanometers, corresponding to frequencies in the range 30 petahertz to 30 exahertz and energies in the range 120 eV to 120 keV. They are shorter in wavelength than UV rays and longer than gamma...
s, Dr. Schleussner invented the first X-ray plate.
The Schleussner firm began marketing cameras under the ADOX brand name in the first third of the 20th century and, recognizing the growing importance of the brand, renamed itself "Adox Fotowerke Dr. C. Schleussner GmbH." In 1952 they introduced a line of very sharp 35 mm films
135 film
The term 135 was introduced by Kodak in 1934 as a designation for cartridge film wide, specifically for still photography. It quickly grew in popularity, surpassing 120 film by the late 1960s to become the most popular photographic film format...
under the ADOX brand.
In 1962, the Schleussner family sold its photographic holdings to DuPont
DuPont
E. I. du Pont de Nemours and Company , commonly referred to as DuPont, is an American chemical company that was founded in July 1802 as a gunpowder mill by Eleuthère Irénée du Pont. DuPont was the world's third largest chemical company based on market capitalization and ninth based on revenue in 2009...
, an American company. DuPont became owners of the trademark, and registered it in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
.
DuPont licensed the Adox film technology, but not the trademark, to Fotokemika, a manufacturer in Yugoslavia
Yugoslavia
Yugoslavia refers to three political entities that existed successively on the western part of the Balkans during most of the 20th century....
, who used the technology for films sold under their Efke
Efke
Efke is the brand name of photographic films, papers, and chemicals manufactured by Fotokemika d.d., a company located in Samobor, Croatia.-Products description:...
trademark. DuPont kept the Adox trademark, transferring it to a subsidiary, Sterling Diagnostic Imaging, for its Adox brand X-ray films. They still apply it to an industrial chemical, sodium chlorite
Sodium chlorite
Sodium chlorite is a chemical compound used in the manufacture of paper.-Use:The main application of sodium chlorite is the generation of chlorine dioxide for bleaching and stripping of textiles, pulp, and paper. It is also used for disinfection of a few municipal water treatment plants after...
.
In 1999, Sterling was bought by the German company Agfa
Agfa-Gevaert
Agfa-Gevaert N.V. is a European multinational corporation that develops, manufactures, and distributes analogue and digital imaging products and systems, as well as IT solutions. The company has three divisions. Agfa Graphics offers integrated prepress and industrial inkjet systems to the...
, and was absorbed into Agfa's Health Sciences unit. In this roundabout way, the Adox photographic trademark once again became German. Agfa did not use the Adox trademark, and the mark was removed from the German Patent Office trademark registry in March, 2003. It was almost immediately revived by companies in Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
, the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, and FOTOIMPEX in Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
, none of which are related to the original Schleussner firm.
Sources
- The text of this article has been adapted with permission from information published at http://www.adox.net/about_adox.htm.