Since they just lost their cover boy Lee Young Dae crossing to Yonex side, maybe they're just so desperate in finding way to crank up their revenues even busting small time resellers hahaha.
Precisely, under two conditions: There is a European trademark, and it's present on the item. For instance, apacs does not have a European trademark, so it's not affected. You bought the item outside Europe (Where Europe = EU + some nations like Switzerland / Norway). If you buy Victor rackets in Portugal, you can indeed sell them how you want. As others mentioned, while it may seem draconian, these laws prevent imports from a brand that could circumvent safety, labor, and environment EU standards. Also, in practice nobody cares about private sellers, or used items. In this case, there were probably 100+ rackets (the same models multiple times), almost all of them brand-new.
What we shouldn't count in, but it is a fun fact that the difference between a TW or DE coded Victor racket is, that both come out the same factory produced by same standards. Victor International is reselling the Taiwan stuff beside their own stuff. But just order a fraction of the available stuff. The reasons are that their market is smaller compared to Asia and they also have own product in their range. Here is an E-mail correspondence from me and Victor asking for ordering from TW to Germany in Summer 2015. Spoiler -----Ursprüngliche Nachricht----- Von: XXXXXX.XXXXXX@gmx.de [mailto:XXXXXX.XXXXXX@gmx.de] Gesendet: Samstag, 27. Juni 2015 13:38 An: VICTOR International GmbH Betreff: Neue Nachricht auf der Internetseite Name: XXXXXX XXXXXX E-Mail: XXXXXX.XXXXXX@gmx.de Nachricht: Sehr geehrte Damen und Herren, ich beabsichtige einen Victor Schläger aus Taiwan zu bestellen. Jetspeed S 9 in 3U. Aktuell bin ich mir unsicher, ob dies durch sie gestattet ist, denn soweit ich weiß sind Victor Taiwan und Victor International unterschiedliche Unternehmen. Ich würde mich sehr freuen, wenn sie mir mitteilen könnten, ob mein Unterfangen durch sie gestattet ist oder ob ich eventuell Probleme bekommen könnte. Schließlich geht es ja um einen größeren Betrag, den man nicht so einfach verschmerzen kann. Vielen Dank. MfG XXXXXX XXXXXX -------------------------------------------------------------- The reply: Guten Tag Herr XXXXXX, vielen Dank für Ihre Nachricht bezüglich des VICTOR Jetspeed 9. Wie sie richtig erkannt haben, ist die Marke VICTOR in über 50 Ländern der Welt durch uns geschützt. Die kommerzielle Einfuhr von VICTOR-Produkten nach Europa ist somit ein markenrechtlicher Verstoß und wird entsprechend sanktioniert. Sofern Sie sich privat einen Schläger bestellen, ist dies jedoch unproblematisch. Bitte beachten Sie jedoch, dass nur der Kauf bei einem unserer deutschen Fachhändler die Originalität des Schlägers garantiert und Ihnen darüber hinaus die bewährte Qualität, Haltbarkeit und vor allem die Gewährleistung sichert. Gerade in Asien sind derzeit eine große Anzahl an Plagiaten unterwegs. Ggf. kann es also passieren, dass diese Fälschungen beim Zoll abgefangen werden. Sollten Sie hierzu noch Fragen haben, stehen wir Ihnen selbstverständlich jederzeit zur Verfügung. Mit freundlichen Grüßen VICTOR International GmbH ppa Frank Meisner
Having slept about that topic one night, I tend to see things a bit more nuanced. I am also quite certain that it highly depends on the sheer number of rackets that are sold if a company like Victor will engage or not - even if the law would allow them to act for every single non-EU racket that is sold privately. And with the amount of rackets that freewilly has sold over various channels (BC, eBay, FB), I can somehow understand that this is way above the limit that a "normal player" (without the goal to make significant profit out of it) is supposed to sell. And frankly speaking, I am sure that you will have a hard time to plausibly explain how even a maximum-badminton-freakish collector is able to sell +- 100 rackets of which a lot never have touched a shuttle. There is an understandable suspicion coming up, that you intentionally and on a regular basis order more than one racket of the same type to keep one for yourself and your collection and to sell the rest of them with profit. And in all honesty, I would expect you to have a hard time to save your a$$ from that claim without the help of a professional at your side. The law in that particular case seems to be pretty clear - at least as far as a BC-amateur lawyers can tell. Nevertheless, I would also be highly interested to get some sort of statement from Victor Europe when it comes to selling used non-EU products on a clearly non-business level. Maybe we have indeed @paulstewart64 who can make the link here?
Maybe he sold 100 new rackets, maybe he didn't, but it doesn't seem like they're calling him out on evading laws that would require him to be considered a business. It seems like they're complaining about the fact that he sold a model that he got outside the EU. Maybe I'm wrong, but if that's the case, they could easily go after a person who sold 1 racket from Asia.
No, they're complaining about freewilly unauthoritatively using a Victor trademark while selling Victor rackets commercially.
Oh he was using the trademark? I thought he said he wasn't (not that he would admit to that I guess).
Since they're approaching him for violation of § 14 II 2 MarkenG (according to phihag's post above), it's quite unlikely that he hasn't used a Victor trademark. Otherwise they would be shooting in the dark.
Playing devil's advocate here, I wouldn't put it past lawyers to try and bully someone by claiming that simply having a photo of the racket would be a trademark violation (since the racket itself has the Victor logo on it).
Agreed... keep in mind that most people don't fight these types of letters and just pay, that covers the lawyers fees and gets another person out of the market. I think it's ridiculous that you can't sell something privately if it came from outside the country. If the OP is buying them from other authorized retailers then what's the big deal? How many is he selling? 20-30 a year? That's nothing....
The other authorised retailers know they arent meant to sell to Europe. There are legal agreements in place. Victor Europe have an exclusive rights deal to sell in Europe.
Ya... and what if Victor Europe refuses to carry a certain model? Then what do the private individuals do?
I guess the individuals buy from overseas on a 'to order' basis. And if they resell, it's on a word of mouth or an occasional basis. Was it mentioned that a Facebook page was setup for selling racquets? If so, that's probably classified as advertising as a business since that's trying to reach out more than a few hundred people.
Ya, there's a lot of confusion here. I don't think the OP was completely up front about everything but still ridiculous that all of this is happening. I highly doubt that if I sold 20 rackets a month that Victor Canada would come after me....
Sounds like market monopoly to me. Take an example I've seen many left side driving cars (import cars) which model is not sold locally in the streets in my country, if the car is legitimate with their paperwork, import tax, etc, even if it's purchased from individually owned car shop, what power do the authorized dealer in the country has to rule this? Basically none. The German rule and trademark law is already a big joke from beginning, and with how Victor Europe trying to profit from this is so pathetic.
I don't see it as Victor Europe trying to make a profit out of the small guys. Victor Europe is a company that signs an exclusive agreement with Victor to distribute Victor racquets in the region. I don't think a few racquets is going to raise eyebrows. It's only if you run a business and do very obvious marketing and advertising. I don't think trading secondhand is going to be a big deal. But selling over a hundred racquets over a sustained period of time..... Somebody decided to call time on it. As for cars, just how many of the same vehicle are imported as opposed to one brand? And then you have to take it in context of Germany which is probably stricter.
I think the only way to approach this issue is first of all to cool down a bit and discuss this based on the facts. Now I'm playing the devil's advocate here and see things from Victor Europe's position: 1) Victor Europe (VE) is paying money (and I guess quite a lot of it) to having the exclusive right of selling Victor products in Europe. Hence it's only logical that they will try to minimize the number of products that are imported from other areas in the world and which (in theory) are reducing VE's business and profit. 2) Since they basically cannot prevent that individuals are importing products for their own personal use (which is perfectly fine with the law), they will at least be very careful that there won't grow some kind of grey market where individuals import a slightly larger number of products with the intention of selling them in VE's home market. VE will clearly see this as an illegal competition since their exclusivity right is violated. 3) The law clearly allows VE (in theory) to prosecute every single case in which an imported product is resold again inside their home market. If we consider that law as being useful or ridiculous doesn't matter at all. Since this is impossible in reality (and would make them look as the most pathetic a-holes ever...), I guess they are looking for the supposedly big ones who have in their opinion crossed the line between private and business. 4) Why is VE charging the OP then because of unauthorized useage of a Victor trademark and not because of reselling non-EU products? I can only guess, but I can imagine that it's a simple question of evidence. The way I see it, they would have to get their hands on each and every product in question themselves to create valid and unquestionable evidence about the illegal sale. Again, that's practically impossible. And the way OP has described the story, it appears as if they (either VE themselves or the lawyer's office) have indeed bought one of his rackets to create certain evidence but then chose to go by the trademark-issue since it will be far easier to prove. Besides helping to foster an "evil empire"-image for Victor Europe, I think that this case creates quite a lot of uncertainty for a lot of individuals (myself included). And that's why I am still hoping to get some sort of statement from VE regarding the following question: Is it tolerated by VE that individual users are reselling Victor products that have been bought outside the EU on a small and non-commercial level through platforms like BC? And if yes, where do they draw the line? And one last time, I am mentioning @paulstewart64, hoping that he might be able to get some sort of statement from Victor Europe regarding this question. Acting as a link between the customers and the company is my definition of being a brand ambassador - and it shouldn't make a difference if it is about promoting new products or about not-so pleasent topics like the one which is discussed in here.
Yeah that's my analogy of saying it's actually market monopoly (not to mention it's also breach of free trade act)because someone else already mentioned other brand Yonex or Lining not imposing this. That trademark law and rule is only happening exclusive in Germany. If they have the right to sanction products that were made out of the EU region, wouldn't Victor Asia also has the power to remove all European coded Victor from their market area they cover if proven it's sold , bought or traded by individuals other than authorized sellers , but it didn't happen vice versa or maybe not yet in this case. But I sure hope it's not happening because sales and trading of second hand or used rackets is obiviously done by everyone and everywhere . Even buy and sell thread in BC will be closed if everyone's doing region sanctioning like what Victor Europe is doing.
