Need Direction Please

[ssnt1129]

What is the name of your state?What is the name of your state? West Virginia

I have been selling on e-bay for sometime now. I make magnets, lamps and other materal out of licensed carebear material. Ebay or (VERO) has pulled my auctions. I have e-mail the company "American Greetings" asking them why my auctions were pulled. No reply yet. The e-mail states copyright, trandemark infrindgements.

I have in no way stated that these are genuine Carebear products. All my products say that they are hand made and also state what they are made out of.

Could some one tell me how I can fight this or is there a loaw that prohibits making handmade items from manufactured material?

 

[shortbus]

Yes, there are laws against it. Copyright & trademark law. Wait, they told you that!

The Carebears are intellectual property belonging to someone else. When you buy a Carebears item, you get the right to use it for your own personal purposes. You do not get the right to turn it into a magnet and resell it.

Stop it.

 

[realdeal]

What is the name of your state?What is the name of your state? West Virginia

I have been selling on e-bay for sometime now. I make magnets, lamps and other materal out of licensed carebear material. Ebay or (VERO) has pulled my auctions. I have e-mail the company "American Greetings" asking them why my auctions were pulled. No reply yet. The e-mail states copyright, trandemark infrindgements.

I have in no way stated that these are genuine Carebear products. All my products say that they are hand made and also state what they are made out of.

Could some one tell me how I can fight this or is there a loaw that prohibits making handmade items from manufactured material?

There is a ebay seller named TABBERONE who sells things like this and gets VeRO'd all the time. She sues the manufacturer and she has won 100% of her suits. She is not a lawyer and she files the suits all by herself. Take a look at her website and she updates you on all of her past and pending cases.

Here is the link to her VeRO page:

http://www.tabberone.com/Trademarks/trademarks.html

The lesson is "Dont let the big guys bully you. You CAN win."

 

[divgradcurl]

Could some one tell me how I can fight this or is there a loaw that prohibits making handmade items from manufactured material?

If you are purchasing licensed materials, and then using those licensed materials to make other products, then that, in itself, is probably not infringing -- you would be covered by the "first sale" doctrine. However, if you then use the trademarked name in your eBay title or description, however, that use of the trademark is very likely to be infringing.

So you can likely make and sell the products, it just may be difficult to describe them adequately without infringement.

How far you want to go to prove up your side of the story is up to you.