Siglent They filed a "wrongful trademark claim"

[AF6LJ]

Well like Bill Clinton once said "Depends on what the definition of is, is."

[nbritton]

Of course, but you still aren't a lawyer, you are (sorry to be blunt, nothing personal, it's just a fact) just an anonymous person on a forum. Why should I take your word for it that something is illegal? If you have evidence to back up your claim then please present it, otherwise don't be surprised that some people aren't willing to take your claim as gospel.

Fair enough, but I believe I provided enough details in my posts as I usually do, but of course I can only lead a horse to water, it must drink on its own. For example, I linked to the NACI form which shows that to make a take-down claim on ebay you have to sign an affidavit, and provide factual details for the take-down request.

Sure, but you made the certain claim that what they did was totally illegal, without question, cut and dry.

What they did was totally illegal, without question, cut and dry. The only thing up for debate at this point is if what they did was a criminal act or simply a civil tort. I do have some training as a paralegal, and Wuerstchenhund is not talking out of his butt. Siglent may have committed perjury when it submitted a falsified take down notice to eBay, in the USA this is a felony. I'm just speculating, but you might even have enough probable cause to make a RICO case stick. I see plenty of probable cause here to start criminal proceedings, probable cause is a very low standard to meet. If I were on a grand jury I would indict them.

[hli]

Wrong. It is a crime. You might want to learn a bit more about the topic instead of continuing to make wild guesses:
https://www.ftc.gov/enforcement/anticompetitive-practices

OK, so lets read the law (the page is not so big after all).
Its not horizontal conduct since there is only one company involved. So is it single conduct? The page says "meaning a firm with market power cannot act to maintain or acquire a dominant position by excluding competitors or preventing new entry".  By all means, Siglent has no "market power". Looking at the lawyers page you linked in about antitrust issues for small companies it says the same:
"even small businesses can dominate a market if the product is unique and the market is small". Thats not true for Signlent as well.
(I should mention I'm not a lawyer too, but I'm married to one and you learn quite a thing after some years...)
What Siglent did surely is questionable behaviour, but it seems to be quite common practice. They over-reacted in this case (and admitted to that multiple times). I would measure them on what they do in the future.

[OldSchoolTechCorner]

Every person who has ever used a forum knows all you need to practice law is access to Google!

 And an agenda with narrative to drive home.

 As fellow members all we really need are the 'facts' and let that guide us in our opinion of and personal relationship with Siglent for future transactions. No lawyers, real or armchair types, required, really.

 If the Siglent wants to protect/save their brand reputation (at least on this forum) they will. If not then it's their loss not ours.

Well said

Give them a chance to make it right at least and change their ways. They screw up, but lets not shoot, or hang them yet, without at least giving them a chance. Who know this might be the kick they needed. They admitted to the mistake a few times and working on correcting it. If they don't correct it, then that on them and I will take necessary steps I have to.

[hli]

I'm betting there are countless nuances in how you word things on such a form and your intent etc as to whether or not it's "illegal", not to mention messy cross border legalities etc.

I'm married to a lawyer. Whenever someone asks her a general legal question ("what happens when") the answer is "it depends". She actually calls it "the legal default answer #1" because it _always_ depends on the exact case and its nuances.
(For example I think most people here seem to miss that the cited Ebay form asks for a sworn statement that the signee is allowed to act on behalf of the right owner. Clearly that is true, so the employee in question did no lie. Anything else was "I believe" which as far as we know is true too).

[Wuerstchenhund]

Well if that's the case, my uncle works as a manager in the antitrust division of the U.S. Department of Justice, you can write to him here: <email address deleted>

I found an IT Manager by that name, but if its your uncle then maybe you could ask him to bring this thread to the attention of someone appropriate. They can look at the facts and evidence and decide.

BTW, I'd remove the email address, I'd guess he might not like it to be open in public.

[bson]

Usually what happens is that companies buy people's silence, usually with some free goods if the victim is naive and can be made to believe that this is a simple mistake that never-ever will happen again, or in hard cash for those that see through the scam and need more convincing.

The other common story made to convince victims to go away is that the person responsible is no longer with the company.  With the implication that they've been fired.  Usually combined with an apology to make it feel like the victim is on the same side as the company and it's all about this individual.  It's so much BS of course.

[EEVblog]

As fellow members all we really need are the 'facts' and let that guide us in our opinion of and personal relationship with Siglent for future transactions. No lawyers, real or armchair types, required, really.
 If the Siglent wants to protect/save their brand reputation (at least on this forum) they will. If not then it's their loss not ours.

This.

[electrolust]

I DON'T think that anti-competitive behavior is a crime. You keeping saying things like "anti-trust" violations. You think Siglent is a monopoly of some sort? Not even Agilent/Keysight/Whatever could run afoul of anti-trust regulations even if they wanted to. All they did is lie to EBay.

We may or may not have moved on from this point in this thread, but hey I feel like I'd like to add my voice again, that's what forums are for are they not?  So we can all hear ourselves talk like we are all experts?  lol

He keeps saying anti-trust because OP noted the claim was for a trademark violation.  Trademark and anti-trust are intimately connected, in fact they are almost to the point of being one and the same.

Here's an easy to digest reference.
http://www.mondaq.com/unitedstates/x/404030/Trademark/Antitrust+Law+and+Trademarks

[electrolust]

A few years ago, I tried to sell one of my many official Solidworks packages on ebay and it was taken down, because I allegedly violated their license agreement. I sold the package later outside of ebay and did not care anymore about the issue and the new owner was able to transfer the license to his name. So, software may be a different issue.

Yes, software is a completely different issue.  Almost all end-user software is licensed, not sold, and first sale doctrine and the like do not apply.  (Even if you are transferring original physical media.)  It feels like you are buying software, from beginning to end, but in fact you are not.

[electrolust]

A few years ago, I tried to sell one of my many official Solidworks packages on ebay and it was taken down, because I allegedly violated their license agreement. I sold the package later outside of ebay and did not care anymore about the issue and the new owner was able to transfer the license to his name. So, software may be a different issue.

There have been many court battles over selling second hand software and the software companies lost big time.

They did?  AFAIK the supreme court has upheld that software is licensed, not sold, and companies are free to refuse to allow transfer of licenses.

http://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2010/09/10/09-35969.pdf

Please post another link or two supporting your argument if you still maintain otherwise.

EDIT: ninth circuit decision, not the supreme court.  effect is the same.

[electrolust]

Now after talking to the GM and after comments in threads and PM's. I do believe it was their marketing department that screw up and yes a women did put the notice in, not going to reveal name, but was also in the PM's. Now the GM is relatively new to the company and do understand it can take a while to turn things around, so I do give the benefit of the doubt. It's more likely is the old way they did business and they figure it was ok as they done it so long and got away with it with no complaints and it's still wrong. So it a massive screw up on their part is what I chalk it up to.

That's what they want you to believe, and there's really nothing "old way of doing business" about this.

I have to go with OldSchool on this one.  Companies of all sizes (but much more likely for medium and large companies) have large amounts of incompetence throughout them.  This is the kind of thing that a company would totally get wrong.

[nctnico]

A few years ago, I tried to sell one of my many official Solidworks packages on ebay and it was taken down, because I allegedly violated their license agreement. I sold the package later outside of ebay and did not care anymore about the issue and the new owner was able to transfer the license to his name. So, software may be a different issue.

There have been many court battles over selling second hand software and the software companies lost big time.

They did?  AFAIK the supreme court has upheld that software is licensed, not sold, and companies are free to refuse to allow transfer of licenses.

http://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2010/09/10/09-35969.pdf

Please post another link or two supporting your argument if you still maintain otherwise.

You conveniently snipped the part about the physical medium...

[nbritton]

Well if that's the case, my uncle works as a manager in the antitrust division of the U.S. Department of Justice, you can write to him here: <email address deleted>

I found an IT Manager by that name, but if its your uncle then maybe you could ask him to bring this thread to the attention of someone appropriate. They can look at the facts and evidence and decide.

BTW, I'd remove the email address, I'd guess he might not like it to be open in public.

No I'm not going to waste my time and energy writing him about this, I'm just a spectator here watching Siglent get torn a new asshole by an angry mob, it's entertaining. I have no skin in the game because I do not own any Siglent gear, and after this I will not own any in the future ether. I was thinking about buying a SDG2000X, but you have the rust, crappy website, crappy firmware, sock puppet accounts, and now this... no way, not now, not ever.

[OldSchoolTechCorner]

Usually what happens is that companies buy people's silence, usually with some free goods if the victim is naive and can be made to believe that this is a simple mistake that never-ever will happen again, or in hard cash for those that see through the scam and need more convincing.

The other common story made to convince victims to go away is that the person responsible is no longer with the company.  With the implication that they've been fired.  Usually combined with an apology to make it feel like the victim is on the same side as the company and it's all about this individual.  It's so much BS of course.

If their was 100's of people saying same happen, then different story. Reason I started this thread beside to let people know what happen, so they don't get away with it and to see if others would come forward as suspected they done the same to me to other's, as that usually the case and the fact I saw another listing disappear, but couldn't see the listing as was deleted. Figuring one of the biggest forum for "Test Equipment", someone would have read this thread and said something.

The disappearing listing was from ToolBoom Supermarket, after using the cache to see the listing, as google saves it. They are a Siglent authorized distributor I found out. So more likely Siglent had nothing to do with the disappearing listing as I suspected. So far it seem like they only done this to me, their maybe others, I won't doubt that they done this before, but no one else has came forward yet. Did look at other listings for at last the last three months and couldn't find any other deleted listings, or at least ones I know of. I have also a used Siglent scope which was listed for over a month and sold it, they didn't do anything to that listing.  What they did that started this whole thread was wrong and they are clearly in the wrong and they pretty much admitted it was for controlling the price, but the email came from the lady I won't name, very well could have been same person that sent the notice. So very well could be a major screw up on that employee part, or department and they assume it was ok, when it's not. 

Very questionable behavior and maybe illegal, but do I really want to go that route? No, I look at more details and don't see them being this big evil corporation, like some do. I see them more being disorganized and having lack of procedures set in place and lack of, or poor communications. Plus the fact they changed a few upper management staff recently. So rather give them the chance to resolve the issues. It up to Siglent to take the steps to regain the trust of their customers.


Other used Siglent gear sold and not deleted.

http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_sacat=0&LH_Complete=1&LH_Sold=1&_nkw=siglent&rt=nc&LH_ItemCondition=3000&_trksid=p2045573.m1684

[Macbeth]

They did?  AFAIK the supreme court has upheld that software is licensed, not sold, and companies are free to refuse to allow transfer of licenses.

http://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2010/09/10/09-35969.pdf

Please post another link or two supporting your argument if you still maintain otherwise.

I think this is just a USA thing. Everyone knows that SCOTUS is just a rubber-stamp machine for the corporations. I know that e.g. Microsofts EULA's in Europe are a lot different than the USA for example. Over here if it's sold on a CD or DVD then it's a product that can be sold on. Quite rightly. Likewise surely a software license only subscription should be either refunded pro-rata or able to be sold on. Of course the whole "license agreement" with the great big scrolly block of utterly unreadable to the common customer text and an "OK --- I AGREE! PLEASE! GO AWAY!" button is the bullshit everyone has to put up with for over 20 years so that Microsoft and Co. can somehow change cultures worldwide to actually believe this shit is law, that people believe it and it eventually does become law!

Of course with all the secret shenanigans like the TPP and the European TTIP behind closed doors goods will soon all belong to the manufacturers. It will be illegal to "don't turn it on, tear it apart!". Third party sales or firmware updates will be illegal.

Just because the USA is fucked over by corporations don't assume the rest of the world is (just yet anyway)

[OldSchoolTechCorner]

Now after talking to the GM and after comments in threads and PM's. I do believe it was their marketing department that screw up and yes a women did put the notice in, not going to reveal name, but was also in the PM's. Now the GM is relatively new to the company and do understand it can take a while to turn things around, so I do give the benefit of the doubt. It's more likely is the old way they did business and they figure it was ok as they done it so long and got away with it with no complaints and it's still wrong. So it a massive screw up on their part is what I chalk it up to.

That's what they want you to believe, and there's really nothing "old way of doing business" about this.

I have to go with OldSchool on this one.  Companies of all sizes (but much more likely for medium and large companies) have large amounts of incompetence throughout them.  This is the kind of thing that a company would totally get wrong.

Exactly

I dealt with midsize and large companies/corporations and seen some pretty stupid fuck ups and failed for reasons that could have been easily prevented. So talking from experiences.   

[Alex Eisenhut]

So I guess now is not the time to start my new scope company called Siglant, huh?

[bson]

That another one that magically disappeared?

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:Ibduh48vQ9kJ:www.ebay.com/itm/SIGLENT-SDS1072CML-Digital-Oscilloscope-/141557959724+&cd=11&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=ca

This though is a seller in HK and not in the U.S., so not protected by U.S. law and likely can't be part of a report to the FTC BoC.  (Which you definitely should submit IMO.  You can do it by email even.)

[OldSchoolTechCorner]

That another one that magically disappeared?

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:Ibduh48vQ9kJ:www.ebay.com/itm/SIGLENT-SDS1072CML-Digital-Oscilloscope-/141557959724+&cd=11&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=ca

This though is a seller in HK and not in the U.S., so not protected by U.S. law and likely can't be part of a report to the FTC BoC.  (Which you definitely should submit IMO.  You can do it by email even.)

It's toolboom, they are a Siglent authorized distributor.

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:Ibduh48vQ9kJ:www.ebay.com/itm/SIGLENT-SDS1072CML-Digital-Oscilloscope-/141557959724+&cd=11&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=ca

[bson]

We'll all look a lot less stupid if we refrain from talking about legality, on both sides of the argument, without citing sources. No, Wikipedia is not a source.

No, but the FTC is a source on U.S. law.  Their guides are written as legal advice by staff attorneys, vetted by attorneys and reviewed and approved as an overview of U.S. law - the Sherman Act and FTC Act in particular (the latter fully encloses the former).

https://www.ftc.gov/tips-advice/competition-guidance
https://www.ftc.gov/tips-advice/competition-guidance/guide-antitrust-laws/antitrust-laws
https://www.ftc.gov/tips-advice/competition-guidance/guide-antitrust-laws/dealings-competitors/price-fixing

As you can see from the cases they mention as examples, there aren't Microsoft-scale enforcements, but groups of optometrists, importers, and small numbers of defense attorneys conspiring to control pricing and competition.

[AF6LJ]

So I guess now is not the time to start my new scope company called Siglant, huh?

I always thought it would be better to start a company called Craptronix...
Our motto would be "There is Crap in our name so we have to be better".
 

[DimitriP]

So I guess now is not the time to start my new scope company called Siglant, huh?

I always thought it would be better to start a company called Craptronix...
Our motto would be "There is Crap in our name so we have to be better".
 

This probably belongs to "funny company names" but what a good thread if it doesn't get derailed every so often ?

Naaaa... Sigsight!

Aaaaaaall those years there hasn't been a "new" company that picked a name that sounds like any old name. HP changes the name to Agi-LENT and poof less than two years later sig-LENT shows up.
Now that Agilent is Keysight I'm waiting for the next  xxxsight company to show up .

[crispy_tofu]

Sightsight? 

[-jeffB]

Hindsight.