Leica First Invented Autofocus but Didn’t See Its Value

Did you know that Leica was actually the company that first invented autofocus? Between 1960 and 1973 the company patented a number of autofocus technologies, and then showed off the technology at photokina in 1976 and 1978. However, the head honchos of the company believed that their customers knew how to focus and preferred focusing themselves, so they decided to sell the patent rights to Minolta.

Image credit: Minolta Maxxum 7000-Mirror Detail by Capt Kodak