How to re-bottle a product and sell it as something else?

[Northern Lawn]

Just buy it in bulk from a large chemical company, and re-bottle it.

Unless the product has a newly invented chemical, it would be easy to come up with something close enough. Just look up the MSDS, to see what the active ingredients in the product are.

He said he contacted the company and they refused to do anything for him and also told him "everyone" would be informed about him so he can't get the product made elsewhere.

Sounds a little far reaching and unrealistic. He still won't say what the product is though but it has something to do with cleaning.

 

[alkemyst]

depends on the patent and company. If they have an official statement on licensing on their product and/or resale it could come to play. That said even if they don't they can crush you in court.

 

[CZroe]

Contract manufacturing is not the same as reselling something as yours that isn't [yours].

Except that it is yours. You bought it.

 

[Sho'Nuff]

depends on the patent and company. If they have an official statement on licensing on their product and/or resale it could come to play. That said even if they don't they can crush you in court.

Le sigh. Nobody pays attention to me. <wistfully looks at prior posts about exhaustion doctrine>

 

[RelaxTheMind]

why re-bottle when 9 times out of 10 you can get the same product made overseas and shipped here for pennies. call the manufacturer anyways (this is the hard part), unless they have a binding contract with another company they are fair game . money is money.

majority of supermarket chemicals/food/medicine/supplements do not have a solid patent and even if they did its not hard to modify. its not shady, just about everything you see on the shelf is a resell, dollar stores and bargain shops in particular.

the difference between them all is marketing.

 

[pmv]

i don't see how taking a product. re-badge it as your own would be legal.

now you can buy a case of pepsi and offer $3 per can. but i don't see how you can buy the pepsi put them in a can marked "waggy juice" and get paid.

My first thought was 'there's no way that can be legall'

But then I remembered this

So maybe he just as to 'filter' it or something, and then he can call it his own product?

 

[pmv]

It's your property. They got their dues and you are not profiting off their name and trademark, only your property. It's no different than buying the ingredients.

Japan is weird in that you aren't technically allowed to sell a used CD, software, or video game software if it is copyrighted, but even that isn't enforced. Most other places have a concept of "first sale doctrine" that treats the original copy you purchased as your property to do with as you please (rent, loan, view, etc) as long as you don't profit off their copyright. When there is no copyright, like with a typical consumer goods product, things are a lot simpler.

Maybe one day everyone will start using the EULA system beloved of software makers? You don't buy a drink, you buy a licence to use it - and it remains the property of the supplier (even after its passed through you!).

 

[pmv]

Also I seem to recall Levis jeans once successfully went after supermarkets in the UK for reselling their product - and that was without repackaging it and while keeping all the correct trademark and label information.

Its because the markup on those jeans was so high in the UK that the supermarkets could buy them _retail_ in the US, fly them over to Britain, and then resell them at a lower price than Levis were charging and _still_ make a profit.

The EU put a stop to that, robustly defending the UK customer's right to pay far more than Americans do and defending the corporate right to avoid competition. (Its daft when people say the EU is 'socialist', incidentally, its not, its corporatist, it panders to whichever lobby group is strongest)

 

[lxskllr]

Maybe one day everyone will start using the EULA system beloved of software makers? You don't buy a drink, you buy a licence to use it - and it remains the property of the supplier (even after its passed through you!).

I'd be happy to give it back ;^)

Not sure how relevant it is to this situation, but there's a court case currently going regarding first sale doctrine. Some guy was buying school books in Asia where they were legally sold at a far cheaper price, and reselling them in the USA. I should out find what's happening with that. It would restrict the used market for just about everything...

http://www.publicknowledge.org/blog/publishers-distributors-must-learn-let-go

 

[Sho'Nuff]

I'd be happy to give it back ;^)

Not sure how relevant it is to this situation, but there's a court case currently going regarding first sale doctrine. Some guy was buying school books in Asia where they were legally sold at a far cheaper price, and reselling them in the USA. I should out find what's happening with that. It would restrict the used market for just about everything...

http://www.publicknowledge.org/blog/publishers-distributors-must-learn-let-go

Not to resurrect a dead thread, but that case involves a copyright issue, not a patent issue.