I eagerly await the Meike 85mm (yes, Meike makes some nice stuff, like their EF/RF filter adapters). I have the Samyang 85mm AF in RF mount, which I'm pretty sure uses EF protocols, so I think it'll be interesting to directly compare autofocus performance.
On the whole issue of whether Canon is putting its thumb on the 3rd party lens market, I think it's worth calling out what we know and - importantly - don't know:
- Canon operates internationally through nation- or region-based companies like Canon USA. These companies have marketing agreements with their parent company allowing them to market the products, sell them, and perhaps even enforce intellectual property (IP) rights within their region. That latter bit we don't really know. I do know that some US IP litigation (trademark violations) involved Canon Japan as the main party.
- Each of those regions has different IP legal regimes - sometimes quite different. This gives Canon varying levels of control. For instance, in the US, trademark law looks carefully at the interests of the consumer with an eye for whether a defendant's actions cause consumer confusion. So, calling a lens an "RF lens" may trigger a US jurist to think that this make confuse the buyer into thinking that it is made by or blessed by Canon.
- There are different types of IP. Patents are the elements that everyone here focuses on. But there are also trademarks and copyrights, and some more obscure ones.
- The whole story about Canon "disallowing" third party lenses came from a German story that I read as more of a trademark issue. It seemed that Canon Europe was chuffed that a company was representing its lenses as "rf lenses" or "rf compatible." Those are loaded terms. They may imply that there was a relationship with Canon, or that all of the RF functionality was included in them. I suspect it was on this basis that they were threatened with legal action - not a mount patent issue.
- While a company like Meike might get a specific license agreement with Canon, this doesn't infringe on existing abilities for third party makers to produce the EF lenses they've been making for a generation, including the use of the autofocus protocols that plainly work on the RF mount as well.
- Several important countries have been coming down on companies (especially printer companies) that deliberately design into their products superfluous elements that prevent consumers from repairing their own equipment or using third party consumables. This is affecting the product designs of everything from iPhones to John Deere tractors. Canon is likely not anticipating controlling the lens market based on these sorts of tactics.
- Sigma and Tamron can sell all the lenses they make now. I'm sure they'd like to make RF lenses as well - Sigma's CEO has said so multiple times - but they may wait until RF protocols are more openly available so as to not have to deal with the potential liability of their lenses not working with future Canon bodies.
- There are a number of Sigma lenses I'd very much like to have in RF. I already own the ones that I want in EF and adapt them to RF. But the more modern mirrorless-specific designs need to be native-mounted to RF, as they can't be adapted to RF from L-mount or E-mount. This may be a long wait.
