How are they supposed to know if someone represents a product as authentic if it really is or not?
How are YOU, as a dive shop owner, supposed to know?
You can't, quite reasonably. It is simply unreasonable for you to verify the pedigree of every item that walks in your shop's door.
Now did SP have a beef with the manufacturer? ABSOLUTELY. Infringement of trade dress, copyright, and probably fraud on top of it.
But unless you can prove that LP knew they were getting counterfeit product and represented and/or sold it with knowledge that they were doing so, that's where it ends.
Second, you can't induce someone to violate an illegal agreement (an illegal contract is no contract at all); this is first-semester business school stuff. All the hand-waving about it by various industry "pundits" looks to be nothing more than a sop to the manufacturers advertising in rags printed on increasingly yellow paper.
As for their Scubapro regs sold today by LP, I KNOW they're not counterfeit because I've seen one ordered from them that had all manuals and accessories included. The hoses were original (they're rather distinctive on SP regs; those hose "ends" and the hose protectors are simply not available anywhere else), which is a DEAD giveaway if someone's playing games. The octo "clip", which is an SP patented item, was in the box. The manual was in the box. They were clearly unused and did not have a scratch on them.
I agree with buying through DiveInn (I bought a compass from them), but frankly, LP has a warranty too. Its a shop warranty, but so is DiveInns - and with LP you can mail them to a US location (with DiveInn you have to send them overseas.) For DiveInn you need to add 4.2% in customs duties for anything over $200 - pretty much the same as "sales tax"....
Scubapro will not typically permit registration of a warranty for any product purchased outside the US dealer network if you are a US resident, with very, very few and limited exceptions.
My complaint is that SP and most other manufacturers allegedly engage in price-fixing. In fact, I KNOW that one particular manufacturer has such constraints in their contracts, because I have a copy of one sitting on my desk.
The SRA was sued out of existence over this a few years ago, but it appears the manufacturers, instead of modifying their practices, simply do it directly now rather than through their "association." Hopefully the complaints I have sent to the FTC on this practice will engender another investigation, this time with real teeth, aimed at all the manufacturers and other parties who are complicit in this practice.
Its wrong and needs to stop.
How are YOU, as a dive shop owner, supposed to know?
You can't, quite reasonably. It is simply unreasonable for you to verify the pedigree of every item that walks in your shop's door.
Now did SP have a beef with the manufacturer? ABSOLUTELY. Infringement of trade dress, copyright, and probably fraud on top of it.
But unless you can prove that LP knew they were getting counterfeit product and represented and/or sold it with knowledge that they were doing so, that's where it ends.
Second, you can't induce someone to violate an illegal agreement (an illegal contract is no contract at all); this is first-semester business school stuff. All the hand-waving about it by various industry "pundits" looks to be nothing more than a sop to the manufacturers advertising in rags printed on increasingly yellow paper.
As for their Scubapro regs sold today by LP, I KNOW they're not counterfeit because I've seen one ordered from them that had all manuals and accessories included. The hoses were original (they're rather distinctive on SP regs; those hose "ends" and the hose protectors are simply not available anywhere else), which is a DEAD giveaway if someone's playing games. The octo "clip", which is an SP patented item, was in the box. The manual was in the box. They were clearly unused and did not have a scratch on them.
I agree with buying through DiveInn (I bought a compass from them), but frankly, LP has a warranty too. Its a shop warranty, but so is DiveInns - and with LP you can mail them to a US location (with DiveInn you have to send them overseas.) For DiveInn you need to add 4.2% in customs duties for anything over $200 - pretty much the same as "sales tax"....
Scubapro will not typically permit registration of a warranty for any product purchased outside the US dealer network if you are a US resident, with very, very few and limited exceptions.
My complaint is that SP and most other manufacturers allegedly engage in price-fixing. In fact, I KNOW that one particular manufacturer has such constraints in their contracts, because I have a copy of one sitting on my desk.
The SRA was sued out of existence over this a few years ago, but it appears the manufacturers, instead of modifying their practices, simply do it directly now rather than through their "association." Hopefully the complaints I have sent to the FTC on this practice will engender another investigation, this time with real teeth, aimed at all the manufacturers and other parties who are complicit in this practice.
Its wrong and needs to stop.
