This is a completely seperate system from the Manufacturers system
A real world example is if you import products from a product feed and use the manufacturers system to assign the feeds to and if your feeds contain licensed products you can create seperate brands for the licensed products.

The Shop by Brands Module adds a modern brand management system to CE Phoenix Cart, allowing you to:

Create custom brands
Upload brand logos/images
Link brands to product categories
Display responsive brand logo grids
Link brand logos directly to assigned categories