!!!Fake UC100 controllers on e-bay!!!

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Re: Fake UC100 controllers on e-bay

Postby cncdrive » Mon Oct 17, 2016 1:43 pm

LEGO is a registered and protected Trade Mark and is also copyrighted because of the special design. Unfortunately, unless you can claim the IPR and provide evidence that the fake UC100 is actually a copy of your specific product, you don't have much chance in a court process. Also, if you'd go to court you must be prepared to lose and that might cost you a lot of money in the end. I think LEGO has more money and a larger organization with corporate lawyers as support to deal with such things than you have. It can be difficult to fight these kind of people and businesses for a small company. If I were you, I'd buy one of these and would examine it carefully, to see if they just use the name "UC100" or the design is copied as well.


Yes, I don't have corporate lawyers support, except my niece's who is a layer, other than that we working with one other lawyer only when we make serious contracts or when we for example bought our warehouse etc., but he is not really specalised with this type of problem, I know that because we already had a similar case and had to work with another lawyer on that one.
So, I think the best I can do is talk to my niece first and see what advice she will give.
On the other hand I'm not optimistic about this as I'm a realistic thinking guy and for example I remember the case when a Gecko drive was copied by a chinese company about 10years ago where they clearly copied their design and however the original fake producer got stopped but that counterfreight drive as far as I know is still produced and sold. The counterfreit company can simply make a new e-bay account or new website or new company and can continue selling, so yea, I don't have illusions.
And I already saw the design of that controller and it is not a physical copy of our UC100, it is a different layout with different chips etc. and as mentioned with the DDUM controllers software which is a well known to be having problems controller...
What I'm the most sorry about is the customers who will actually buy this. :(
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Re: Fake UC100 controllers on e-bay

Postby Robertspark » Mon Oct 17, 2016 2:10 pm

cncdrive wrote:...
What I'm the most sorry about is the customers who will actually buy this. :(


As long as you structure your website and manuals with a section fake products and make it clear that there are fakes trading on your good products then you have tried your best to make new customers aware....

You have to look at it from this perspective too... customer has heard of a uc100... search's eBay or aliexpress... sees several uc100 listed products.... one would expect that they should look at the detail of the listings... within that it should show clearly which is the supported product and that one of them advises that there are fake products about (or inferior)... a search of any web links provided... should indicate which is the real product... ultimately the customer has to take some responsibility for what they buy... why really would they choose to buy the other product... they should take some responsibility for doing a little research....
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Re: Fake UC100 controllers on e-bay

Postby medman007 » Mon Oct 17, 2016 7:53 pm

Reported. Sorry you have to go through this.
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Re: Fake UC100 controllers on e-bay

Postby ger21 » Mon Oct 17, 2016 10:49 pm

ultimately the customer has to take some responsibility for what they buy... why really would they choose to buy the other product... they should take some responsibility for doing a little research....


Unfortunately, there are a lot of clueless customers out there out there.

I'd put a page on your website explaining the situation, but that's really all you can do.

At least your not in the same position as Planet CNC, where the Chinese have been making pirated versions of their boards for years.
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Re: Fake UC100 controllers on e-bay

Postby Battwell » Wed Oct 19, 2016 7:14 am

Trade marks in Europe are only good if you can afford good lawyers to defend that trade mark.
Otherwise they are useless.
I'd suggest changing your advert on eBay with a highlighted note that the cheaper copies are not sold by you and won't be supported
And ask all resellers to add same to their web pages
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Re: Fake UC100 controllers on e-bay

Postby cncdrive » Wed Oct 19, 2016 9:07 am

Battwell,

Yes, thats correct and even if you have good lawyers a lawsuit like that can take years while they can just close that company and report bankruptcy. :(
And enforcing a European injuction in China is also not realistic, they will simply change seller name, company etc., it is too easy to slip out of the hands of law out there...
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Re: Fake UC100 controllers on e-bay

Postby thegreatwaldo » Wed Oct 19, 2016 11:23 am

cncdrive wrote:Battwell,

Yes, thats correct and even if you have good lawyers a lawsuit like that can take years while they can just close that company and report bankruptcy. :(
And enforcing a European injuction in China is also not realistic, they will simply change seller name, company etc., it is too easy to slip out of the hands of law out there...

Hi
I have just googled uc100 and have been directed onto your ebay site. I think what you should do is on your listing mention that there are fake uc100's on ebay (the pictures of the fake ones come up on the same screen) and state that it will not work with your software. That should be enough to put people of buying the fakes. As a beginner I am extremely happy with my real uc100 and it's software.

Regards

Andrew
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Re: Fake UC100 controllers on e-bay

Postby Robertspark » Wed Oct 19, 2016 11:40 am

There is a well known European car manufacturer (actually 3 I believe) that have had similar looking cars manufacturered in China, at least 1 that I know of took the company to court... and lost.. dispite it looking very similar.... http://www.bmwblog.com/2008/12/19/bmw-l ... -x5-clone/

Only the lawyers get rich, and due process takes due time... really obvious text explaining the situation that draws the eye to it is your best offensive... your defence of them never working with uccnc is covered (and they probably won't work with your mach3 plugins too)
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Re: Fake UC100 controllers on e-bay

Postby cncdrive » Wed Oct 19, 2016 1:43 pm

Thanks guys.
The Fake alert was now added to our e-bay listing.

Rob, I think our case is a bit different than the X5 car copying issue, because it is like if they selling that similar looking car under the name X5 and I guess that if they would do that then BWM could probably win that case easily.
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Re: Fake UC100 controllers on e-bay

Postby Robertspark » Wed Oct 19, 2016 1:59 pm

Sorry, my point was that if BMW can't win a court case with their teams of lawyers over someone copying your product or trading on its good reputation by looking like your product.... the little guy has no chance. But by alerting others that there are fake products about, yours is genuine, and you support yours, if all the other listings do not mention fake products it's easy to determine who's is the genuine product. With links back to your website, documentation, (well supported) forum, support email address, phone, whatever, etc. Anyone buying the other product only has themselves to blame (or ebay and put a claim in.... actually... wonder if you can buy the fake ones (10, 20 etc, then put a claim into eBay for fake goods and get a refund???).... cheaper than lawyers...
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