The Jenoptik brand is older than you might think

With Carl Zeiss Jena and Carl Zeiss Oberkochen, the Zeiss brand name existed twice in divided Germany. From 1957, the Jena-based company switched to the name Jenoptik for sales in West Germany.

File VA 941 in the Zeiss archive reads as follows: "Measures taken by the legal department to protect trademark rights, in particular: information from the general director dated May 27, 1957 for all combine operations and directorate areas about the ban on the use of the company name and old trademarks by CZJ [Carl Zeiss Jena, editor's note] in the territory of the Federal Republic of Germany and West Berlin, and takeover of sales and correspondence into these territories by Jenoptik Jena GmbH."

Legal disputes about the worldwide naming rights resulted in the London Agreement in 1971. It provided for Zeiss Jena to appear in six Western European countries and the USA under the company name Jenoptik GmbH. The devices themselves read "from Jena" – as a trademark, so to speak, instead of the Zeiss lens logo. In contrast, Zeiss West, based in Oberkochen in Baden-Württemberg, henceforth operated under the name OPTON in Eastern Europe. For all other countries, "coexistence" applied, according to which both could use their Zeiss-related but distinguishable company names and trademarks.

• Learn more about the Jenoptik history.