If the code is open source, you can copy the code directly.
Then a little modification, it is your own token, which is what many tokens do now.
The thing is I don't want to make my own token.. just proceed from where the previous author left.. make a new website etc.
But want to keep everything as it is... cause I'll need to reapply to exchanges and all.
I've seen this happen with few coins and recently with photon... new devs took over from where the previous one abandoned.