Another Misuse Of Trademark Law To Prevent Competition
from the just-what-we-needed dept
Gregory A. Beck of Public Citizen writes in to let us know "Public Citizen Litigation Group filed suit yesterday against Dymo Corporation, a company that makes label printers. Our client is a small eBay seller named Rip Mohl, who sells printer labels that are compatible with Dymo printers. After failing to talk him into becoming an authorized distributor of brand-name Dymo labels, the company began invoking eBay's Verified Rights Owner ("VeRO") program to terminate his auctions of compatible labels. VeRO is an implementation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, but although the DMCA applies only to claims of copyright infringement, eBay also extends the same takedown procedures to trademark claims. In this case, the company claimed that by truthfully stating that the labels were compatible with Dymo printers, Mohl was infringing the company's "Dymo" trademark. After several VeRO terminations, Mohl had to remove the Dymo name from his listings in order to avoid the risk of losing his eBay account. As a result, his sales have declined to a fraction of what they used to be. Printer companies are especially active in terminating the eBay sales of compatible products like labels and ink cartridges. This is, we think, another example of abuse of intellectual property laws to squelch legitimate competition. This kind of abuse ultimately hurts everyone by raising prices and reducing choices available to consumers. The Dymo-brand labels on eBay, for example, cost an extra couple dollars per roll. Small eBay sellers, however, typically do not have the resources to defend themselves from the intellectual property claims of big corporations. These claims therefore almost always go unchallenged." This is another bad use of trademark law -- having nothing to do with the intended purpose of trademarks.
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eBay Law
...either that, or the "eBay Law"... which we all know otherwise as, "do what I say and not what I do".
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I agree, when corporation giants see the little guy, they want to squash him so they can eat all the profits. This is wrong because it drowns out the competition.
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brand-name Dymo labels
if Dymo is so "in the right" about their claims, than eBay should also remove all items that are compatible with other such items - such as car parts that are compatible with major manufacture cars (ever heard of AFTERMARKET SUPPORT PRODUCTS?)
...and what about other products that are compatible with someone who owns a Sony VCR and a JVC Television with Adelphia provided Cable hooked up through wires purchased through Radio Shack...
But with Dymo's analogy, the customer would have to have 100% of the product purchased from Best Buy, being manufactured by Best Buy and being 100% ONLY supported by Best Buy... as an example.
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I mean, if Dymo doesn't allow aftermarket support for their products, they are essentially shooting themselves in their feet if they should ever run into financial problems.
Dymo products will be obsolete since the only place to get support Dymo will be from Dymo.
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dymo loses
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Re: dymo loses
if this is the case, why should Dymo make such a big deal about PCLG selling aftermarket products? I mean, the harassment that PCLG has been getting from Dymo is enough for them to at least file suit against Dymo.
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Chain of command
-Stupid government creates bad law
-Greedy company exploits bad law
-Gutless auction house fails to protect customers from bad law
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Sue the Bastards
No laws were broken. Dymo should pay. End of Story.
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I'll sure not to use Dymo
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Ebay can have whatever policies it wishes, of course, But they should make it clear it's just an ebay restriction and not something to do with legal restrictions on trademark usage.
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can't contact Dymo
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I think he was wrong
There's nothing in his item description to say that these labels are not made by Dymo.
Reading it I would not at first glance think that these were a third party label.
I do think that trademark and copyright are over used, but this is a legit case.
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Re: I think he was wrong
There are plenty of 'compatible' items on the market. Why is Dymo picking on him?
Dymo is just a plain bully, and using eBay's LOUSY VERO program (which has lots of loopholes) to enforce their bullying! A total disgrace imho!
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Re: Re: I think he was wrong
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Patent infringement
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