Contacted by manufacturer about our website

[Mattleycrue76]

My gut says tell em to go get bent. But I'm with Meng Tze - I'd just go the Ebay route and avoid the headache.

 

[dhuskins]

Note: I am not a lawyer and cannot/do not give legal advice.

My two cents: You can put anything in your store to sell that you own. Think second hand stores. They are not distributors of all the manufacturers that they sell. Neither are you.

You made no agreement with the manufacturer to sell your inventory with some minimum advertised price. The person in violation of the MAP agreement is the shop that is going out of business.

I think of your products are second hand items that happen to have never left their original package. I would expect to buy second hand items for less than full retail and think it silly for anyone to assume a second hand item should be sold for full retail.

You're doing fine in my book.

 

[fnfalman]

I agree with the consensus that they are using their legal muscle to intimidate you. Why not? The lawyer is either on staff or on retainer, so they might as well use his services. Fortunately, you have weapons too--a sort of asymmetric warfare, if you will. By publicizing the manufacturer's name here (we can probably narrow it down to two ourselves) you can up the ante for them. I'd consult a lawyer beforehand though. Keep us posted.

Yep.

And tell them that you will countersue them. Two can play at that game.

 

[knotical]

Over the weekend we were contacted by a manufacturer requesting us call them to discuss becoming an authorized dealer, OR to remove all the items from our site or face full legal action.

I'd ask them to put their request in writing.

 

[Jim Lapenta]

I'm, guessing that it is happening ONLY because some shop that sells the same brand is crying like a little baby that you are taking business from them. They are most likely sodomizing people with their prices and you are letting the public see it. Screw em as I said earlier. And I was serious about letting me know what you got. PM me if you want to. I will not distribute the info.

 

[redacted]

Why don't you go ahead and enter discussions with them on becoming and authorized dealer and, in the mean time, restore your site. I'll bet those discussions could drag on for months.:blinking:

 

[RJP]

If you legally own the products, no-one can stop you from selling your own property. If you sell it as a company, i can see how this can be 'morphed' into trying to sell it 'as' an authorized reseller.

My two cents: You can put anything in your store to sell that you own. Think second hand stores. They are not distributors of all the manufacturers that they sell. Neither are you.

If you have no vendor agreement with the manufacturer, you can sell the goods for whatever you want.

I'm not a lawyer, but based on what I do for a living I happen to know more than most about advertising, trademark, copyright and intellectual property law.

Let's not forget that the name of the company and the individual product names in question are most certainly registered trademarks. If the owner of those trademarks wants to enforce their intellectual property ownership by not allowing you to infringe on them they can - and legally they actually MUST - or risk losing the rights to their own trademarks. I deal with this all day long. It's a real issue and not trivial.

So, yeah, you can sell the goods for whatever you want. But legally you cannot use the manufacturer's name, the product name, or the model number info or risk violating copyright and trademark law.

However, if the OP wants to email me, I can provide some boilerplate language that would cover you in that respect...

:cool2:

 

[mdb]

RJP:

Good professional comment. Hope the OP takes you up on your offer.

 

[CompuDude]

I'm not a lawyer, but based on what I do for a living I happen to know more than most about advertising, trademark, copyright and intellectual property law.

Let's not forget that the name of the company and the individual product names in question are most certainly registered trademarks. If the owner of those trademarks wants to enforce their intellectual property ownership by not allowing you to infringe on them they can - and legally they actually MUST - or risk losing the rights to their own trademarks. I deal with this all day long. It's a real issue and not trivial.

So, yeah, you can sell the goods for whatever you want. But legally you cannot use the manufacturer's name, the product name, or the model number info or risk violating copyright and trademark law.

However, if the OP wants to email me, I can provide some boilerplate language that would cover you in that respect...

:cool2:

If that's the case, how does it work on eBay, and how are you supposed to describe the product you're trying to sell?

 

[Teamcasa]

Over the weekend we were contacted by a manufacturer requesting us call them to discuss becoming an authorized dealer, OR to remove all the items from our site or face full legal action.

I'd ask them to put their request in writing.

Sound advice. Have all correspondence sent via your lawyer.

As long as your website is clear about the warranty issues and how you obtained the products, I'd hope my lawyer tells them to go ahead and pursue whatever action they want to see plastered on your website.