Lamy Is Sending Cease & Desist Letters To Taobao Sellers

[chiuqq]

Here is a cease & desist letter from a law firm in Shanghai demanding one “unauthorized” on-line seller stop selling LAMY pens and pay RMB 500,000 (approximately to $81,700) to LAMY’s exclusive distributor, a Hong Kong based company.

 

 

[Mesu]

Took a long time for Lamy to send this. It would be interesting to watch the outcome.

 

Seeing the number of the Hero Safaris available online, i am assuming they have been produced in considerable numbers and the manufacturer will put up a fight.

[hari317]

If i understand the letters correctly, this is about unauthorised reselling of genuine Lamy, not about the fakery going on, the second letter is a general notice to the Public about fakes rather a warning of no warranty support for products bought from the grey market....

Edited September 26, 2013 by hari317

[Paul80]

It will never work, no court in China as ever upheld any counterfeit product claim, not even from the likes of BMW, so LAMY has chance.

 

Paul

[WirsPlm]

International strong-arm tactics are a surefire turn off for me. Is it the actual Lamy company doing this, or just the Lamy distributor in China?

[Sasha Royale]

I have yet to see any demonstration of compliance or regard for copyright convention, in the

PRC market. Sorry to say that I believe LAMY will continue to be violated with impunity.

[chiuqq]

If i understand the letters correctly, this is about unauthorised reselling of genuine Lamy, not about the fakery going on, the second letter is a general notice to the Public about fakes rather a warning of no warranty support for products bought from the grey market....

 

Hari,

 

You are 100% correct that they are talking about the genuine LAMY pens. The Hong Kong distributor retained its lawyer to send such a message to those sellers: Hey guys I am the exlusive! Your LAMY pens are too cheap than mine so you have to cease selling them immediately and pay me money to cover my loss.

[jptech]

Took a long time for Lamy to send this. It would be interesting to watch the outcome.

 

Seeing the number of the Hero Safaris available online, i am assuming they have been produced in considerable numbers and the manufacturer will put up a fight.

Hero Summer

That's the official name.

[JLS1]

Hero Summer

That's the official name.

 

Out of curiosity, has anyone compared the Hero Summer and Lamy Safari in this forum or the FP Reviews forum?

[Vendome]

It's all Chinese to me.

[Mesu]

Hero Summer

That's the official name.

 

Thank you

 

 

Out of curiosity, has anyone compared the Hero Summer and Lamy Safari in this forum or the FP Reviews forum?

 

 

jptech has posted some nice pics and a mini comparison.

 

https://www.fountainpennetwork.com/forum/index.php/topic/249497-heros-safari-clone/page-4?do=findComment&comment=2785076

 

 

It's all Chinese to me.

 

It isn't Greek??!! Equally clueless about both

[Harlequin]

As some others have mentioned in various threads, whatever Lamy's claim on the Safari in China (as far as patents) has expired. Whether that information is accurate I don't know. But since this claim is actually about authentic Lamy pens, not the Hero Summer pens, it may actually be enforced. But again, that doesn't really have any bearing on the Hero Safari pens being sold, as far as I can see. Maybe someone else who can understand the letters can say for sure, like hari or chiuqq?

[ucong]

If this letter talks about the genuine Lamy pens, it is an issue of parallel import on which Chinese law is currently silent.

 

Apart from the legal aspect, I would say that if Lamy hadn't been selling an ordinary Safari fountain pen in China for more than USD 60, there would not be so many Lamy pens on Taobao.com

 

I think Lamy shall reconsider their pricing strategy and use their lawyer to deal with other more important issues, such as Hero.

 

BTW, the law firm Lamy used for this letter is obscure.

[KBeezie]

I don't see this as being a thread to any Hero, Jinhao, etc pens that *look* like a Lamy, but rather preventing one retailer from selling Lamy pens (Genuine or counterfeit, anything that bears the Lamy name).

[KBeezie]

I think Lamy shall reconsider their pricing strategy and use their lawyer to deal with other more important issues, such as Hero.

 

Out of curiosity why is that more important? And it would be nearly impossible to do so without also being owned by a Chinese firm. Trying to enforce trademarks within China from outside is about as difficult as it was for Apple to prevent apple knock-offs and counterfeits, it's pretty much unenforceable because the government won't really do much about it.

 

What they would need to do, if they really wanted to attack one of the major channels of it would be to force eBay's hand in adding them as part of a prohibited product, but that's kind of hard to do without banning the whole brand on the site, which eBay isn't likely to do (since there's probably more sales of that making eBay money than Lamy products).

Edited April 27, 2014 by KBeezie

[Scribblesoften]

I don't see this as being a thread to any Hero, Jinhao, etc pens that *look* like a Lamy, but rather preventing one retailer from selling Lamy pens (Genuine or counterfeit, anything that bears the Lamy name).

 

Read Hari's post above.

[basterma]

Maybe Lamy knows it won't win against the manufacturers of the knockoffs, so it is trying to salvage something out of this...

[disillusion]

As many people have stated above, this letter is about genuine Lamy pens appearing on Taobao.

 

The Lamy distributor in China is selling the standard editions Safari for 380RMB ($61) and Al-Star for 530RMB ($85) whereas the Taobao seller in question have them listed for under 200RMB, sort of in line with German online prices. If the figures on Taobao are to be believed, this seller sells hundreds of Lamy pens a month and there are quite a few other sellers on TB that do the same. So the Lamy China is losing a sizable amount of sales to parallel importers, and tried to remedy the situation by threatening to report these tax-dodging sellers.

 

I won't comment on the legal aspects as I am no expert on Chinese trademark law, but the effectiveness of this particular letter can be seen quite clearly - this particular Taobao seller is still selling Lamy pens.

Edited April 27, 2014 by disillusion

[Paul80]

$61 for a normal Safari, how on earth do they sell any at that price.

 

Even in rip off Britain the standard Safari models only sell for $25

 

Hope the $61 mentioned is not US Dollars because that would be just a stupid price to pay for a Safari.

 

Paul

[welch]

Lamy would not be trying to enforce trademark or copyright. They are trying to support their Chinese distributor. Something like that happened when an on-line seller in the US began to sell gray-market Pilot Iroshizuku inks. Pilot/USA complained to Pilot home office; Pilot demanded that any US dealer get their Iroshizuku inks from Pilot/USA. The head office set a standard price of $35 per bottle, and allowed dealers to discount 20%, but no more. The gray-market importer had been selling at about $20 per bottle.

 

Pilot's strongest argument: "we will sell no Pilot product -- none -- to a dealer that sells ink obtained outside the proper distribution channel or at a larger discount".

 

In this case, Lamy could hunt down the leak -- the channel through which Chinese sellers were getting Lamy products -- and refuse to sell them anything.

 

Unless Lamy can shut the gray-market leak, there is no incentive for any company to be Lamy's distributor in China.