Siglent They filed a "wrongful trademark claim"

[wraper]

OMG stop with the DMCA.  It's not a DMCA case.  And please stop with the DMCA bashing.  Why does everyone always want to bring out the DMCA pitchfork?  DMCA is actually great for content producers (meaning, you and me) and content distributors (meaning, youtube etc) alike and places a high burden on the copyright owner (ok not great if you own the copyright!).

If a DMCA complaint is issued, the carrier has to remove the material within x hours (48?).  But, the producer has the chance to issue a counter-claim.  Then, the carrier can (must?) put the material back online.  Now the burden is on the copyright holder to go through a more expensive court process to get the material taken down.

Why this is great is because the carrier is absolved of liability, thus freeing them from having to actively look for copyrighted material and determine if it is being illegally distributed -- an insoluble problem.  And folks that have a fair use or other case have a well defined way to protect their own rights.

The whole DMCA takedown process is a good thing.

What sucks are the anti-copy-protection-circumvention parts.

Then google how this works on youtube. There is a huge business of fraudulent DMCA trolls milking content they don't own.
http://www.wired.com/2011/11/youtube-filter-profiting/all/1

[sleemanj]

What a great way for grey market stuff to be sold -- sell as used but mint "personal" equipment
(...)
 authorized distributors so they do need to defend against price cutting.

Again, unless I am mistaken, Parallel Importing is permitted in the USA.  If somebody wants to parallel import Siglent and sell cheaper, that's their right to do so and Siglent can't do jack about it legally [ to force them, but it can lawyer up to persuade them or persuade the marketplace (ebay) to restrict them privately ].

[sleemanj]

Actually, to be fair to Siglent, as I understand it, a Class 35 Trademark (I have not checked if they have one, but presumably they do) covers the usage of your logo on online stores and such.

It is my understanding that use of a trademark in a representation of the product which bears the trademark, is fine.

Otherwise here in NZ we'd probably have to have one of our biggest retailers rebranding all their Mexican coke as "cuke" or something :-)

As for the US, this document goes into ways in which "authorized distributors" can be protected in the limited (and lawyerly [read: dodgy]) ways available,
http://www.americanbar.org/publications/blt/2014/07/01_payne.html
but even this pro-protection document tells us:
"The first sale doctrine provides that one who purchases a branded item generally has a right to resell that item in an unchanged state. The trademark rights of a brand owner are “exhausted” once the particular item has been sold in the market."

and

"There is nothing per se illegal about an “unauthorized” sale of “genuine” goods. The first sale doctrine under both trademark and copyright law prohibits brand owners from controlling downstream sales in the first instance."

Then goes on to outline where this can be subverted by way of "material differences" in the products sold in a different market that could cause confusion... that's not going to apply in this case unless the "grey import" Siglents are different to the "authorized" ones in some material way.

[John Coloccia]

Also I can understand Siglent's thinking, even if the execution wasn't so great.

What a great way for grey market stuff to be sold -- sell as used but mint "personal" equipment.  A great way to undercut the authorized distributors.  It's too bad for Siglent that a trademark claim is knowingly fraudulent ... two wrongs don't make a right!

The market on these products is obviously highly competitive and all the companies need the authorized distributors so they do need to defend against price cutting.

Since there's absolutely NOTHING illegal about selling an an unauthorized dealer, there is absolutely no reason to list an item as "used personal equipment" when you can simply list it as "new"...other than the fact Siglent is apparently extremely sleazy and will make false counterfeit and trademark infringement claims against you.

[Wuerstchenhund]

Actually, to be fair to Siglent, as I understand it, a Class 35 Trademark (I have not checked if they have one, but presumably they do) covers the usage of your logo on online stores and such.

I doubt that:
http://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/trademark-class-35-advertising-business-services.html

"In particular, Class 35 includes:

    the bringing together, for the benefit of others, of a variety of goods (excluding the transport thereof), enabling customers to conveniently view and purchase those goods; such services may be provided by retail stores, wholesale outlets, through mail order catalogues or by means of electronic media, for example, through web sites or television shopping programmes;
    services consisting of the registration, transcription, composition, compilation or systematization of written communications and registrations, and also the compilation of mathematical or statistical data;
    services of advertising agencies and services such as the distribution of prospectuses, directly or through the post, or the distribution of samples. This Class may refer to advertising in connection with other services, such as those concerning bank loans or advertising by radio.

..."


Siglent is a registered trademark in the US, though:
http://tmsearch.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=4802:n55hq1.2.1

[Siglent America]

When someone tries to compete against an authorized distributor (who has invested time and money to carry our line)  at some discounted price, the legitimate ones do not like it and we fully understand that. We can not - and we do not - tell our distributors what price they can or cannot charge. We do, however, have the common practice of not allowing them to advertise at a price different from list price. Again, this is a very common industry practice. But I will repeat, our distributors can sell at whatever price they wish.

Thanks for responding directly on the forum Steve, I'm sure everyone here appreciates that greatly.

Also, forgive me for not having read the whole thread, so I may have missed something.

But it seems as though you still think it's OK to issue a DMCA takedown request against an unauthorised dealer on ebay, is this correct?
If so, under what law do you think this is valid?

Let's play hypothetical (could could happen in any country/region):
If someone starts selling "unauthorised" (but not fake) Siglent gear on ebay, importing them and reselling them. But they clearly take their own photos (so no copyright issues apply) and don't use the Siglent logo (so no trademark issue applies), and they even say they aren't an authorised dealer. Do you still think you have the right to issue a DMCA takedown on that seller?

Hi Bob,
I hate speculating here but at the moment I don't have much choice.

My guess is that our employee contacted eBay and asked to have this ad taken down. The eBay letter appears to be a form letter or request - it even has the name of an employee who has not been with Siglent since February of this year. I don't know where DMCA first showed up in this thread but I can be fairly certain that she was merely asking eBay to take it down, not to make any threats. The letter does mention "intellectual property rights" but this does appear to be a form letter from eBay.
Again, I am guessing here, but the fact that people say it is unusual to see used Siglent equipment on eBay suggests to me that this helped to lead to her mistake. She obviously missed the fact that it was clearly marked USED.

I think this was just a royal screw-up by us that has taken on a life of its own.
I have finally been able to reach the customer and will be calling him in the next 1-2 days.
Steve

[Wuerstchenhund]

From my experience I have learned that chinese business people are very often without ethics and act rather selfish. That sort of works within the chinese community but fails miserably if you expand internationally.

So I tend to assume, that this incident was NOT the mistake of one young and unexperienced employee. It looks much more like their ususal company policy. And the excuses one could read in this thread sound EXACTLY like one of those meaningless excuses I personally heard from several chinese factory managers. Next week similar sh*t happens again. They just don' care.

This exactly!

Their Chinese headquarter fiddles with the US market and the US subsidiary is left to utter the mandatory public apology when caught, plus they're probably legally separate from the Chinese mothership so the activity can't legally tacked onto them (or so they may think).

It's criminal behavior, and must lead to serious consequences for Siglent.

[OldSchoolTechCorner]

OMG stop with the DMCA.  It's not a DMCA case.  And please stop with the DMCA bashing.  Why does everyone always want to bring out the DMCA pitchfork?  DMCA is actually great for content producers (meaning, you and me) and content distributors (meaning, youtube etc) alike and places a high burden on the copyright owner (ok not great if you own the copyright!).

If a DMCA complaint is issued, the carrier has to remove the material within x hours (48?).  But, the producer has the chance to issue a counter-claim.  Then, the carrier can (must?) put the material back online.  Now the burden is on the copyright holder to go through a more expensive court process to get the material taken down.

Why this is great is because the carrier is absolved of liability, thus freeing them from having to actively look for copyrighted material and determine if it is being illegally distributed -- an insoluble problem.  And folks that have a fair use or other case have a well defined way to protect their own rights.

The whole DMCA takedown process is a good thing.

What sucks are the anti-copy-protection-circumvention parts.

The one you and a few others keep mentioning and talking about is completely different class and you can file a counter notice easy with that one. As very familiar with the one you think it is as a content producer myself. The one that Siglent sent eBay is way worst as it a actual legal notice and that DMCA was to assert a trademark claim may lead to section 512(f) liability. You can't just file a counter notice on this one. Put it like this way that one has a lot more weight and way more damaging to break it down, that why eBay will even bend. Who ever file it knew exactly what they were doing and now they, or Siglent are going to pay severely for that mistake and they have a US HQ, they are not going to get out of this one that easy. It's is criminal behavior and can be punish under federal law and may lead to serious consequences for Siglent.

[EEVblog]

The whole DMCA takedown process is a good thing.

Did you have problem accessing the EEVBlog website and this forum last night/this morning when it went down for 5-6 hours or so?
Take a wild guess why that happened... (nothing to do with this Siglent thing BTW)

[Wuerstchenhund]

Siglent claim it was the mistake of a junior employee. Ok, fair enough, that happens.

Really? I don't know how things work in Australia but I can tell you that in the US, the UK and most parts of Europe no sane director would allow any employee to start legal proceedings without checking with his lawyers first because mistakes can pretty much end him up in prison.

The notion that a (not that small) company like Siglent is having a graduate with lacking English skills start legal proceedings in the US is utterly ridiculous at best.

But that junior employee must have been instructed to look for this particular issue, take the action they did, and inform the user to change the price. Surely?

At the end of the day it seems what we see is the typical Chinese way of trying to rig the market in their favor.

I think Siglent need to clarify if they have/had a policy which actively targeted non-authorised dealers on ebay and other sites, and if that policy included asking them to change their price.

Clarify? Not sure that will cut it, besides, they basically admitted that they tried to rig the pricing. What else is there to clarify, really?

[OldSchoolTechCorner]

When someone tries to compete against an authorized distributor (who has invested time and money to carry our line)  at some discounted price, the legitimate ones do not like it and we fully understand that. We can not - and we do not - tell our distributors what price they can or cannot charge. We do, however, have the common practice of not allowing them to advertise at a price different from list price. Again, this is a very common industry practice. But I will repeat, our distributors can sell at whatever price they wish.

Thanks for responding directly on the forum Steve, I'm sure everyone here appreciates that greatly.

Also, forgive me for not having read the whole thread, so I may have missed something.

But it seems as though you still think it's OK to issue a DMCA takedown request against an unauthorised dealer on ebay, is this correct?
If so, under what law do you think this is valid?

Let's play hypothetical (could could happen in any country/region):
If someone starts selling "unauthorised" (but not fake) Siglent gear on ebay, importing them and reselling them. But they clearly take their own photos (so no copyright issues apply) and don't use the Siglent logo (so no trademark issue applies), and they even say they aren't an authorised dealer. Do you still think you have the right to issue a DMCA takedown on that seller?

Hi Bob,
I hate speculating here but at the moment I don't have much choice.

My guess is that our employee contacted eBay and asked to have this ad taken down. The eBay letter appears to be a form letter or request - it even has the name of an employee who has not been with Siglent since February of this year. I don't know where DMCA first showed up in this thread but I can be fairly certain that she was merely asking eBay to take it down, not to make any threats. The letter does mention "intellectual property rights" but this does appear to be a form letter from eBay.
Again, I am guessing here, but the fact that people say it is unusual to see used Siglent equipment on eBay suggests to me that this helped to lead to her mistake. She obviously missed the fact that it was clearly marked USED.

I think this was just a royal screw-up by us that has taken on a life of its own.
I have finally been able to reach the customer and will be calling him in the next 1-2 days.
Steve

You can not mess around with "intellectual property rights",  or "assert a trademark claim", you can definitely not use this for "Price Fixing", or anything else it wasn't attended for. It perjury at that point and that alone will get you in serious trouble. I could careless She obviously missed the fact that it was clearly marked USED, you can not use what you used it for PERIOD!! It consider a criminal behavior and can be punish under federal law and may lead to serious consequences for Siglent for very good reason.

So no it not a innocent harmless mistake and yes it can also lead to all kinds of criminal charges. That why companies usually have a legal team, or at very least contact his, or her lawyers first.  Then "price fixing" which you guys admitted is a lot worst, beside just facing Jail and Penalties, you most likely will lose the ability to even be able to trade in the USA and UK.   

This one was done several time before as I suspect. I seen other listing on eBay where people listed used Siglent gear just magically disappear, including the one I based the price off my listing can no longer be seen. The wording on the notice was done by a professional and not some new employee as they claim, they even had it noted to extend to UK.

[Wuerstchenhund]

My guess is that our employee contacted eBay and asked to have this ad taken down. The eBay letter appears to be a form letter or request - it even has the name of an employee who has not been with Siglent since February of this year. I don't know where DMCA first showed up in this thread but I can be fairly certain that she was merely asking eBay to take it down, not to make any threats. The letter does mention "intellectual property rights" but this does appear to be a form letter from eBay.

Yes, because taking down a listing is only permitted under certain, very narrow circumstances.

Again, I am guessing here, but the fact that people say it is unusual to see used Siglent equipment on eBay suggests to me that this helped to lead to her mistake. She obviously missed the fact that it was clearly marked USED.

Does it actually matter? What if the item was new? You think it would made a difference that this was illegal?

I think this was just a royal screw-up by us that has taken on a life of its own.

No, it's pretty much a case of criminal engagement cought out.

[EEVblog]

Hi Bob,

My name's not Bob, he's my uncle.

I think this was just a royal screw-up by us that has taken on a life of its own.

Perhaps, but you haven't answered my question, not that anyone is forcing you to of course.

Does/did Siglent have an active policy of searching for and targeting unauthorised dealers on places like ebay?
If so, what law are you operating under that allows you to do this?

This might be a very big misunderstanding but it has, like it or not, opened up questions as to Siglents intent and policy toward price fixing and market enforcement.

I shall also remind everyone that Siglent were once banned from this forum for having employees creating multiple sock puppet accounts.
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/new-siglent-3000-series-dmm/msg451324/#msg451324

[John Coloccia]

The whole DMCA takedown process is a good thing.

Did you have problem accessing the EEVBlog website and this forum last night/this morning when it went down for 5-6 hours or so?
Take a wild guess why that happened... (nothing to do with this Siglent thing BTW)

You got a letter from Paul Hogan claiming trademark infringement and to immediately stop use of big knives for mailbags. Also, you must increase your prices.

What do I win?

For the record, DCMA absolutely sucks. It does jack diddly squat for the people that really need protection (musicians, for example) because their stuff is played all over the place anyway but they never see a dime for any of it, and actually a large portion of what they SHOULD have gotten paid ends up going to big artists. Just read up on how organizations like RIAA work. I love my country, but we have the craziest patent and copyright laws that seem like they were written by some drunk used car salesman just to see what he could get away with.

[SeanB]

At a very least a public apology and a full explanation of what was done, why it was wrong, who all were involved up the chain ( I doubt a new hire was the only one doing legal notices without some supervision or instruction from above, probably was the one filling out the paperwork as instructed and was told to sign in the place provided thinking it was there as the secretary used) and that all in the company will not do this ever again in future, is a minimum. Otherwise the company is not the RIAA, with deep pockets and lawyers out the Wazoo) and they will run afoul of false copyright claims, which could lead to the copyright office revoking any copyrights and patents that they hold.

As well any suspicion of price fixing or other price manipulation can land you up in a whole lot of trouble. There are laws pretty much world wide about cartel operations and price fixing, mostly coming in under racketeering laws which often have a minimum sentence and a lot of other mandatory things attached.

[engiadina]

My guess is that our employee contacted eBay and asked to have this ad taken down. The eBay letter appears to be a form letter or request - it even has the name of an employee who has not been with Siglent since February of this year. I don't know where DMCA first showed up in this thread but I can be fairly certain that she was merely asking eBay to take it down, not to make any threats. The letter does mention "intellectual property rights" but this does appear to be a form letter from eBay.
Again, I am guessing here, but the fact that people say it is unusual to see used Siglent equipment on eBay suggests to me that this helped to lead to her mistake. She obviously missed the fact that it was clearly marked USED.

Ok, that's a guess. The interesting fact in my eyes is actually that this seems possible in any way, even guessing!

Which right is being stressed to take an auction don on eBay? Ok, let's sum up:

- Copyright infringement
- Stolen goods
- Illegal goods (including fake products)
- ethically or sexually problematic goods
anything else?

In no way I can imagine that selling a Siglent instrument (used or new, doesn't matter) comes even near one of those points.
So there is not even the slightest idea of legitimation visible in my eyes. The described behaviour is at least arrogant, stupid and illegal!

I will stress my opinion again. I noticed, that the level, what is considered cheating versus illegal differs quite a lot in China compared to western countries. And even when they clearly know that something is illegal it rather stops them from doing it anyway. "Cheating" is some sort of common sense or sports if you will amongst chinese management.
Therefore I think it is of no relevance who that woman is who talked with eBay and which terms she exactly used.

The fact that she contacted eBay in any way is already enough to assume, that the Siglent management has - well- still to learn quite a bit. And how they will learn I said before.

[OldSchoolTechCorner]

I shall also remind everyone that Siglent were once banned from this forum for having employees creating multiple sock puppet accounts.
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/new-siglent-3000-series-dmm/msg451324/#msg451324

They more likely will blame that on a few new young women they hired that just came out of college to.

[DimitriP]

The whole DMCA takedown process is a good thing.

Did you have problem accessing the EEVBlog website and this forum last night/this morning when it went down for 5-6 hours or so?
Take a wild guess why that happened... (nothing to do with this Siglent thing BTW)

You got a letter from Paul Hogan claiming trademark infringement and to immediately stop use of big knives for mailbags. Also, you must increase your prices.

What do I win?

My passing thought was that "they" didn't like where the thread was going and contacted Dave's webhost  but since it had nothing to do with siglent, I'll go with the big knife idea

[OldSchoolTechCorner]

At a very least a public apology and a full explanation of what was done, why it was wrong, who all were involved up the chain ( I doubt a new hire was the only one doing legal notices without some supervision or instruction from above, probably was the one filling out the paperwork as instructed and was told to sign in the place provided thinking it was there as the secretary used) and that all in the company will not do this ever again in future, is a minimum. Otherwise the company is not the RIAA, with deep pockets and lawyers out the Wazoo) and they will run afoul of false copyright claims, which could lead to the copyright office revoking any copyrights and patents that they hold.

It going to take a lot more then apology, otherwise they will be looking to do this AGAIN with anyone else that puts up their used gear, am sure the same thing will happen again and again. This is not a simple mistake, as they want to play it down to be. Other listings just don't disappear magically and other shady practices used, that is mention by others. 

[crispy_tofu]

The whole DMCA takedown process is a good thing.

Did you have problem accessing the EEVBlog website and this forum last night/this morning when it went down for 5-6 hours or so?
Take a wild guess why that happened... (nothing to do with this Siglent thing BTW)

Could've just been a random person that filed a request for a takedown, maybe some of the more nefarious people that once roamed this forum
(I won't divulge the member's name for rule purposes, but most people should know who I mean)

edited to add quote/context

[OldSchoolTechCorner]

Could've just been a random person that filed a request for a takedown, maybe some of the more nefarious people that once roamed this forum
(I won't divulge the member's name for rule purposes, but most people should know who I mean)

It was Siglent with no doubt, not a random person, 3rd party, eBay flag system, made up, or a simple mistake. Lawyers of eBay already confirmed that, before I even started the thread. 

[tautech]

Hi Bob,

My name's not Bob, he's my uncle.

I think this was just a royal screw-up by us that has taken on a life of its own.

Perhaps, but you haven't answered my question, not that anyone is forcing you to of course.

Does/did Siglent have an active policy of searching for and targeting unauthorised dealers on places like ebay?
If so, what law are you operating under that allows you to do this?

This might be a very big misunderstanding but it has, like it or not, opened up questions as to Siglents intent and policy toward price fixing and market enforcement.

I shall also remind everyone that Siglent were once banned from this forum for having employees creating multiple sock puppet accounts.
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/new-siglent-3000-series-dmm/msg451324/#msg451324

Do you not think the similarities between this and the thread rf-loop linked from 2010 are amazingly similar?
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/beginners/ds1052e-removed-from-ebay/

Sure eBay's policies will have changed between then and now, particularly re transparency and who is making the claim.

[John Coloccia]

You know what happens sometimes is that groups start doing bad things, and they get so used to doing them that it starts to feel normal and right. That's clearly what's going on here. Siglent keeps talking about how they're just going after unauthorized dealers, and somehow in their minds they've come to believe that this is OK.  Then they come here and the whole internet explodes because the rest of us haven't been infected with that kind of thinking, and it's obvious to everyone else how outrageous it is to use false trademark infringement claims to protect your dealers. Siglent needs to take a deep breath, go for a walk and clear their heads because something's gone wrong with their moral compass.

[EEVblog]

Do you not think the similarities between this and the thread rf-loop linked from 2010 are amazingly similar?
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/beginners/ds1052e-removed-from-ebay/

Yes, they are. I had forgotten all about that Rigol/ebay issues. And I don't recall if we ever found out who actually got ebay to pull those listings?

[EEVblog]

Could've just been a random person that filed a request for a takedown, maybe some of the more nefarious people that once roamed this forum
(I won't divulge the member's name for rule purposes, but most people should know who I mean)

It was Siglent with no doubt, not a random person, 3rd party, eBay flag system, made up, or a simple mistake. Lawyers of eBay already confirmed that, before I even started the thread.

No, he's talking about my website and this forum, not your ad on ebay.