Star Trek, Behind The Scenes

Abrams was not the first to propose a reboot. An attempt was also made by J. Michael Straczynski and Bryce Zabel to reboot the franchise in 2004 (including crew of the original series), but Paramount ignored the proposal as they were not "even willing to talk about Star Trek".
Franchise ownership
The original Star Trek series began production under Desilu Productions. With the merger of Desilu into Paramount Pictures, that studio assumed outright ownership of the Star Trek franchise until 2006, after which CBS took ownership of the franchise, though certain aspects (feature film and DVD distribution rights) are still owned by Paramount.