Cubes order blocked by customs (and fined)/ Rubik's Brand claim

[Radu]

Hi all,

We have a small online shop in Romania (EU) (www.genios.ro if it matters) which is selling the regular cubes locally, like in ever other cube store (MoYu, Gan, QiYi, etc). We ran it without problems for 10 years already since I started it, so we know the business pretty well.
Now, my friend who is running the store, suddenly got some cubes orders blocked by customs (+a fine of 700eur) pretending they are counterfeit. It seems the claim is coming from "Rubik's Brand LTD". I was very surprised by this and i don't know how to solve this for now. We made an appeal at the customs, but the process will be quite long and slow.

It seems the representatives of "Rubik's Brand LTD" in Romania pretend we have broken some EU Trade Marks. More specific :

• EUTM 000323329
• EUTM 015292287
• EUTM 015518971

(this is the only info we got from them so far)

I found these on EUIPO, but I don't see how we broke any of these trademarks. Did something change recently in the legislation and we are not aware of? How can they block an import of GAN cubes, which is Rubik's partner? It's like banning their own products. Even rubik.hu is selling GAN and Giiker cubes on their website!

Is this still the way Rubik's/SevenTowns are used to do business? killing small competitors instead of improving their own products? I thought those times have gone a few years ago.

Any help and feedback from you is welcome! Thanks,

Radu

 

[Sion]

Rubiks? Again? They have a serial pattern for this stuff. They try to call Non-rubik’s cubes counterfeit and start a whole hoo-ha of “The only true cube is Rubiks”.

Have they seriously not learned from the time TC counter-sued them?

 

[Username: Username:]

Rubiks? Again? They have a serial pattern for this stuff. They try to call Non-rubik’s cubes counterfeit and start a whole hoo-ha of “The only true cube is Rubiks”.

Have they seriously not learned from the time TC counter-sued them?

No, they didn't, this is Rubik's we're talking about, a monopolist.

 

[cuber314159]

Sadly Rubik's are going to keep causing trouble I suspect. I run speedcubing.org and the only real interaction with Rubik's we have had is when someone claiming to be their global marketing director approached me at a market stall telling me it was illegal, it didn't seem to effect the customers when I just told them that I wasn't breaking any trademarks or patents but it was annoying and worrying, they never followed up at all. I hear the odd rumour that they have been looking at our site but so far they have done nothing. Obviously cubes being stopped at customs is ridiculous but from Rubik's that doesn't surprise me. This is why I say we should stop using the term 'Rubik's' to disassociate the product from the brand and if Rubik's don't stop doing this then they should be stopped from sponsoring competitions.

 

[Spacey10]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but hasn't Rubik's trademarked the color scheme?

 

[cuber314159]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but hasn't Rubik's trademarked the color scheme?

They trademarked a colour scheme but I think the other cube manufacturers just changed it slightly, cube colour schemes are noticeably different anyway.

 

[deadcat]

Didn't Rubik's lose the EU trademark last year? EDIT: after some digging, the one they lost is 000162784. No idea what's the difference between them all.

In any case, their new CEO has been vocal in supporting the community and ending the legal battles, recently interviewing about it on the cubing@home twitch stream. I'd suggest reaching out to him -- Christoph Bettin.

 

[qwr]

There's a chance these are patent trolls and not actually Rubiks the company. Contact the official Rubiks company to verify.

 

[Tony Fisher]

There's a chance these are patent trolls and not actually Rubiks the company. Contact the official Rubiks company to verify.

I thought it was customs.

 

[Radu]

Update:

Thank you all for answering. I followed this thread, but I didn't post anything as I didn't want to create any fuss until I don't clarify the things myself.

I am happy to let you know that I managed to handle these claims direclty with the Rubik's legal department and it got sorted out in a friendly and simple manner. The orders should be released by the customs soon, but this is something that we need to solve locally in the next few days.

Thanks for the support and the suggestions.