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Rebranding another companies product and selling it as your own

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quincy

Senior Member
or it was a generic response to stall the question as she may not be aware of the matter being something their company actually is involved in.




Maybe I'm wrong. I would have sworn I saw some sort of insignia on both of the units (actually is was on the controllers) but now I cannot find what I was looking at before. That does remove some of the concern impropriety.

in the end, unless ouya has an issue with the situation and does something, it would appear to be tacit approval of the activity.
The logo for Ouya is a letter mark. If it appears on the Media Cube (which does not appear to be a live registered trademark in the U.S.), it is possible that it is etched into the product. Many companies now do this so that it is harder to remove the mark.

justalayman is right, though. None of this is a problem unless or until Ouya decides it is a problem.

What is your interest in this (other than an interest in U.S. intellectual property laws)?
 


JackFrost

Junior Member
or it was a generic response to stall the question as she may not be aware of the matter being something their company actually is involved in.




Maybe I'm wrong. I would have sworn I saw some sort of insignia on both of the units (actually is was on the controllers) but now I cannot find what I was looking at before. That does remove some of the concern impropriety.

in the end, unless ouya has an issue with the situation and does something, it would appear to be tacit approval of the activity.
Actually it has just been confirmed by the CEO of OUYA that they don't have permission and that they are lookiing into it.

My interest is in writing about this, stupid me chose this "Rebranding without permission" as the subject . Who knew it wouldn't be so straightforward after all :(
 

quincy

Senior Member
Actually it has just been confirmed by the CEO of OUYA that they don't have permission and that they are lookiing into it.

My interest is in writing about this, stupid me chose this "Rebranding without permission" as the subject . Who knew it wouldn't be so straightforward after all :(
Make sure before you write about this, you have all of your facts straight.
 
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FlyingRon

Senior Member
They can "look into it all they want" but they can't do anything about it other than trying to cut off where MediaCube is buying the units. MediaCube appears to not be infringing Ouya's trademarks nor copyrights.
 

quincy

Senior Member
They can "look into it all they want" but they can't do anything about it other than trying to cut off where MediaCube is buying the units. MediaCube appears to not be infringing Ouya's trademarks nor copyrights.
How do you know this, FlyingRon? Truly curious.


edit to add: In re-reading posts, I agree that there might not be infringement if the OUYA mark does not appear on the MediaCube product. I went back and bolded portions of posts that could potentially be key.
 
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LdiJ

Senior Member
Guys, just to clarify. both Ouya and Media Cube are US companies under US law. So the question pertains to what US copyright, IP, Patent or laws generally may be broken by Media Cube in doing what they are doing.


Thanks for the replies so far by the way.
Its possible that neither company is making the product, rather they may both be purchasing the product from another manufacturer on a private label basis. This is very common in the manufacturing world. This is also why Ouya might be saying that they are "looking into it" because they may have thought that they had exclusive rights to the product in the US.
 

JackFrost

Junior Member
Its possible that neither company is making the product, rather they may both be purchasing the product from another manufacturer on a private label basis. This is very common in the manufacturing world. This is also why Ouya might be saying that they are "looking into it" because they may have thought that they had exclusive rights to the product in the US.
I'm pretty sure they have it manufactured in China (like everyone else these days) . To give you some background, Ouya is actually a Kickstarted project. They designed the Ouya from scratch - even the controllers and main body which they paid a designer to do. The PCB was designed in house by one of their employees. So it's not like something designed and made by someone else that they are private labelling. It's a somewhat different scenario.
 

LdiJ

Senior Member
I'm pretty sure they have it manufactured in China (like everyone else these days) . To give you some background, Ouya is actually a Kickstarted project. They designed the Ouya from scratch - even the controllers and main body which they paid a designer to do. The PCB was designed in house by one of their employees. So it's not like something designed and made by someone else that they are private labelling. It's a somewhat different scenario.
I understand, but that doesn't mean that the Chinese manufacturer did not sell the product under a different name to Media Cube. It also doesn't mean that Ouya didn't accidently give the Chinese company the right to sell the product to others, or even the right to sell the product in other countries (in exchange for a favorable deal for manufacturing) and someone in another country sold it to Media Cube. It is actually very unlikely that Media Cube is buying the product from Ouya and rebranding it. It would not be profitable for them. It is far more likely that they are either buying it directly from the Chinese company and/or from a distributor abroad. In other words, Media Cube may not be intentionally infringing at all...it may be the Chinese manufacturer who is committing malfeasance, if there is any malfeasance at all.

I could give you all kinds of examples of how this has happened in the past, with products you might be familiar with, but that would turn this post into a book. Suffice to say that while there may legally be infringing going on, there might legally be no infringing going on at all. Somebody may be breaking either US or Chinese law, or nobody may be breaking any laws at all. It all depends entirely on the contracts between the parties.

And also...that is the danger in a company deciding to manufacture their products abroad in a factory they don't control...with contracts drawn in multiple languages.
 
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quincy

Senior Member
I'm pretty sure they have it manufactured in China (like everyone else these days) . To give you some background, Ouya is actually a Kickstarted project. They designed the Ouya from scratch - even the controllers and main body which they paid a designer to do. The PCB was designed in house by one of their employees. So it's not like something designed and made by someone else that they are private labelling. It's a somewhat different scenario.
I am still curious what your interest is in this, Jack, and from what state you are posting.

If you want to go back a few posts, I provided a link to a thread on NHL jerseys. That thread goes over several court decisions in the U.S. on what is and what is not legal to do with trademarked goods. If you read through those court decisions, you may find some of your confusion clears up.

With OUYA, it could potentially be more of a patent issue than a trademark issue (if they have a patent, and this I don't know), unless the OUYA trademark is appearing on the Media Cube product.

Again, what is your interest in this?
 
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