Legal Status of rebranding?

feygan

Not sure if this is the right section but mod please move if incorrect.

Hoping someone can offer some legal advice for an aspect of my business. My main business is within the aerial & satellite industry, however I am about to start a side line involving multmedia units. Without wanting to go into too much detail these units will convert any HD capable tv into a full functioning smart tv, with features even new smart tv's do not have yet.

Now my issue is that I have a supplier of these units, however they already come with the suppliers brand logo printed. I intend to take a stock unit, pair it with extra accessories, and upgrade the program features so it becomes a ready plug and play package. I am hoping that I will then be able to affix my own company logo over the existing one to give it personalisation unique to my company.

Can anyone foresee any possible legal ramifications regarding the rebranding aspect of this? I am already a registered company and sell and install numerous types of media equipment so that avenue is already covered. I just don't want to land in hot water because I have rebadged a product.

Slinky

I remember a few years ago there was a fad for car dealers to add their branding above the manufacturers badge on the back of cars on paintwork. So it said something like Johnsons Vauxhall.

Whether the car manufacturers slapped them down on this or car buyers resisted having the car dealer's details forever associated with their vehicle, it seemed to stop. I have no idea whether the dealer was doing any mods which made it a Johnsons Vauxhall as opposed to anybody elses.

What you are suggesting sounds similar, although whether Feygan Sony would be allowed I've no idea!

Wywth

It worked for Del Boy when he rebranded Thames Water as Peckham Spring Water.

Mind you, back in the land of reality, it never quite worked out so successful when Coca cola tried to launch something similar with their Dasani brand.

I really think you should approach the manufacturer of the item you wish to rebrand and sell as your own.

I know when Aston Martin approached Toyota, they got a very frosty reception. AML wanted to ideally buy the Toyotas part built (without the parts they were going to fit themselves) and were told adamantly no.
Toyota also were very restrictive as to how many they could buy and how they could resell them (i.e. only to owners of real AML products)

InsideInsurance

You would most likely need the permission of the original manufacturers to do the rebranding as you are passing off their goods as your own and it doesnt sound as if you are doing much to the hardware itself.

Many companies however manufacture for multiple brands and speaking to them and agreeing to it shouldnt be much of a problem.

terra_ferma

feygan wrote: »

Hoping someone can offer some legal advice for an aspect of my business.

Here you'll get advice based on personal experience, but I wouldn't call it legal advice, and you should take it with a pinch of salt, just good pointers for further research....

feygan

Thanks for the repies it's cleared up as much as it make me consider other situations. Many products are rebadged in the media industry that could give me a loophole if someone with legal knowhow could offer knowhow on.

Couple of examples, you get a shiny new skybox, now the label on the front says "sky" when running you see lots of things specific to sky (the epg, etc) as it's all their software setup. However the hardware is usually samsung, panasonic etc and clearly labelled at the rear of the unit. The same applies for freeview/freesat boxes all of them are made by the likes of Alba, Bush & Humax yet all carry the "freesat" logo because of software running on the machine.

Now the basic software the units I sell is android which is an open source platform thus not subject to liscences etc, as I will then further customise the setup on the software side would this not mean that as per my setup it is a branded piece of hardware running my companies unique brand of software configuration? Providing I keep something on the unit to show it was physically made by one company and then affix a label with my company logo to the unit, I am not passing it off as entirely my own, but my own unique variant?

InsideInsurance

But BSkyB have a license with Samsung, Panasonic etc to badge them as their kit and in fact it comes off the production line with the Sky badge already on it. On the basis the manufacturer is marked on the rear the cost of doing this wont be as high as if BSkyB had wanted their hardware manufacturers to be totally invisible.

Android is subject to licenses, it is subject to the Apache 2.0 and GPLv2 to name but a few. Now most of these allow you to redistribute without paying royalties but it is wrong to say they are without license.

Ultimately you should get the advice of a intellectual property solicitor, my feeling is that you cannot take someone elses kit, put new software on it and replace the badge without the owner of the hardwares IP permissions which can be complicated by the fact the manufacturer may be licensing IP from other patent owners etc