Manufacturer Trademark Restrictions

How to comply?

[pdivi]

One of my business sells the complete line of a distributor which has literally thousands of manufacter brands. I have an agreement with the distributor, but not directly with the manufacturers. I'm not clear on how using the manufacturer brand names in selling the products exposes me to liability, and how to avoid liability going forward.

Over the course of a couple of years, I've received a C&D letter from just one manufacturer, in reponse to which I immediately erased all of the manufacturer's products from the site. I present their products in a good light -- it's a little confusing to me why they would not want me selling them. In any case, the C&D letter gave me the jitters and I'd like to find a more proactive means of compliance.

What do you do to comply with manufacturer trademark restrictions?

[wsmeyer]

Trademark law is complicated and definitely falls in the <i>when in doubt, consult a lawyer</i> category. This is mainly because of the exceptions to the law given to "fair use". Even if a brand name is trademarked, using it to sell that brand of product falls clearly under "fair use" and there is nothing a manufacturer can do to stop you from using it in that manner.

Most problems occur when using a trademarked brand name for a whole class of products, like the classic example of referring to facial tissue as "Kleenex". Or, using the trademarked logo of a brand without permission, my hunch is that this is what you are referring to and what your C&D letter was about.

It sounds like you received a bunch of product images from your distributor that included the brand logos? If that is the situation I personally would not feel uncomfortable using them until someone complained.

William.

[pdivi]

wsmeyer, thanks for the info. Yes, the C&D did involve images from the distributor. I suppose my use of the images might have been an infringement while the use of the trademark to sell the product was fair use.