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RODINAL! You lucky Americans..

ADOX Fotoimpex

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..are allowed to purchase "properly labeled" RODINAL again!

Whilst the complex situation with the Rodinal trademark in Germany still leads to no one being able to use the name, the USPTO was more flexible in this respect and based on the "if you don´t use it you don´t deserve it" rule we got the trademark canceled and renewed.

So you´ll enjoy "properly labeled" bottles in a few weeks when the ship arrives in Los Angeles port.

Mirko
 

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Congrats. I always get confused with what version of Rodinal is this, the older or the new? I am not even sure, which version I want. I suppose I should get both and try them out.
 
Great. As soon as I finish this bottle of Adonal I'll get me some Rodinal.
 

The canceled part is good.
But what do you mean by "renewed"?
That only you (as a company) are allowed to label it as Rodinal?

Wouldn't that cause the same copyright problems for other companies trying to remake it, if you leave the business?
(I hope you don't btw).
 
Hooray! I bought a bottle of Adolux APH 09 thinking it was the same, it wasn't. I have a useless bottle of goo with a ball of worse goo on the bottom, and it died soon after opening. Maybe I'll have renewed faith in the product again.
 
giannisg2004 said:
The canceled part is good.
But what do you mean by "renewed"?
That only you (as a company) are allowed to label it as Rodinal?

Wouldn't that cause the same copyright problems for other companies trying to remake it, if you leave the business?
Click to expand...

The former owner of the trademark rights in the USA did not care enough for prolonging his rights. Adox slipped in and finally got the rights granted.

Making and trademarking Rodinal are legally total different things. And in contrast to a patent a trademark can be held for a looong time. But this does not happen automatically. Trademarks cannot get buried so to say with the demise of a company.
 
AgX said:
Making and trademarking Rodinal are legally total different things.
Click to expand...

Yes, of course.
But Rodinal is so commonplace, it's often used as a synonym to its chemical compounds.

It would be easier and more recognizable to have different brands of Rodinal (as oxymoron as it may sound, as Rodinal is a brand, not a chemical) than different brands of para-aminophenol.

Anyway, all this is trivia, since nowadays that film isn't the norm, those who shoot it are usually well informed about the actual product.

Good thing that at last it's labeled properly, nonetheless.
 
I've been using Compard R09 One Shot (same stuff) up until now, but will order a bottle of Adox Rodinal the very next time I order supplies. Thanks, Mirko!
 
karl said:
Great. As soon as I finish this bottle of Adonal I'll get me some Rodinal.
Click to expand...

Hurrah. Adonal always sounded as if it was some kind of sex booster drink so wrong kind of developer It doesn't sound right for a photographic chemical

pentaxuser
 
Rick A said:
Hooray! I bought a bottle of Adolux APH 09 thinking it was the same, it wasn't. I have a useless bottle of goo with a ball of worse goo on the bottom, and it died soon after opening. Maybe I'll have renewed faith in the product again.
Click to expand...

Glad I caught this and pulled it from my Freestly cart. I've read so many different thigns on different forums and different places. Aside from the above, what of the current Rodinal based developers are ACTUALLY Rodinal?
 
But what do you mean by "renewed"?
That only you (as a company) are allowed to label it as Rodinal?
Click to expand...

Yes but we are the only company producing Rodinal acording to the orignal Rodinal recipe used by Agfa in the end.

If we for some reason ever decided to stop making it someone else could take it the same way we did.
 
I've read so many different thigns on different forums and different places. Aside from the above, what of the current Rodinal based developers are ACTUALLY Rodinal?
Click to expand...

I know. It´s a mess. I´ve been posting several times and try again now.

Before Agfa closed there were developers around manufactured by a former ORWO company called R09.
They could be called Rodinal because once Rodinal was made and sold acording to this recipe.
However this was more than 50 years ago. So they were actually "50 year old Rodinal".
We still sell such a formular under the APH09 brand but we will stop now.
After Agfa closed the chemical company was spun off and became independant. This company made for one year the so called A&O Rodinal.
Until then the Rodinal name was in use. Then the company was sold again and with it the trademark. The new owners decided not to manufacture end user b&w products anymore but they offered their products in bulk.
At that time we came out with ADONAL and another company decided to call a by then identical product R09 one shot.
I personally find the name chosen a bit confusing because it was not R09, rather it was "real" Rodinal.
But that was their decision.
Another year later this former Agfa chemical company was sold again (!) and stoped entirely the manufacturing of Rodinal (and all other former Agfa b&w chemistry).
We had anticipated this to come and had started throughout the year before to employ former Agfa personel and set up a research lab.
The Agfa people "happened to know the recipes from their memory" (this is about the only way I can legally word this) and recreated them for us in our lab.
Since then we produce Rodinal, Neutol, Sistan and others acording to "known" recipes.
The other company wanted to continue business as well and carried a bottle of Rodinal to a large German manufacturer of photo chemistry asking for a "rebrew" or "clone".
The manufacturer acted as instructed.

Now the outcome is that our product is "genuine Rodinal" like it was produced by Agfa in the end and it is different from all others but I am not saying that the others are in any way bad nor that the differences are huge.

Mirko
 
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OK got it. So in the meantime, while I wait for this to get to the USA, I can use your guys' Adonal, which is Rodinal, but couldn't legally call it that. Also, another manufacturer makes R09 One Shot, which is also the same thing. APH09 and other "Rodinal-like" developers are actually NOT. Correct?

Thanks for the help!
 
I love Mirko's definition: "'genuine Rodinal', like it was produced in the end".

Most of my experience with Rodinal was mostly in the 1970s. Was that Rodinal the same as the "'genuine Rodinal', like it was produced in the end"?
 
I'm just finishing a bottle of APH09, about 18 months after opening it.
No bottom goo, no problems ever in fact.
Developed film perfectly & works at the end of the bottle just like it did at the beginning.

For all the endless threads about the different brands of Rodinal, the history, all the formulas and all the heat the discussions sometimes create, does anyone really see a difference in the final print between the brands? Really?
 

Almost. R09 one shot was at one point identical but isn´t anymore.
 
For all the endless threads about the different brands of Rodinal, the history, all the formulas and all the heat the discussions sometimes create, does anyone really see a difference in the final print between the brands? Really?
Click to expand...

Differences are for sure noticeable between the old and the new recipe. New Rodinal works less grain accentuating. This can be measured and observed. Also the devtimes vary between the formulations. If adjusted differences can be minimised.
 
The former owner of the trademark rights in the USA did not care enough for prolonging his rights. Adox slipped in and finally got the rights granted.
Click to expand...
Not quite. We got his TM canceled because he was not using the brand.
 
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I like rodinal, I just bought myself another bottle of adonal from B&h for my own darkroom and wrapped up a bottle at work restocked in an order from freestyle. The bottle of adonal that is just finished does have a collection of crystallized chemicals caked on the bottom but the developer still worked the same. I have never used the competing r09 product though. Cool to see the old name back as well!
 
Can you say who the retailer is in the US? Let's bring back glass bottles again!
 
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