I kinda want to put a "The Cube" box in a box of my own...
Maybe charge a few dollars more if I throw a written guide in it...
SRS EDIT----
My sarcasm aside, what this
seems to be is an example of so-called "Reverse Passing-Off".
This is when a seller purchases a product from a competitor, replaces the original trademark with his own, then sells it under the new trademark. It is a form of Trademark infringement that violates
§ 43(a) of the Lanham Act.
This is
fundamentally different from rebranding.
Rebranding occurs when a company, typically for marketing purposes, aims to change it's brand identity in the mind of consumers by making changes to it's logo, advertising style, or even its brand name itself. It is a change from
within a company. This stands in stark contrast to what seems to be occurring here.
The issue isn't merely selling someone else's product. Rather, it is the deliberate misrepresentation of someone else's goods as your own.
Now with that being said, there are a few things to consider;
First, the Lanham Act is the primary federal trademark statute of law in the
United States. Apart from a few exceptions trademark laws apply only in their applicable country. I'm unsure where the seller is located, but if they are in a country where Reverse Passing-Off is perfectly legal, then the our complaints about it will fall upon deaf ears.
*
Second, the seller may not be reverse passing-off at all. Perhaps they are manufacturing the cubes themselves, using YJ's design. This is extremely unlikely in this particular case, however, and would in any case then fall into legal issues about patents (if YJ owns any).
Third and finally, the company of "The Cube" may have already struck an agreement with YJ specifying that they will resell with their own mark. We simply don't have enough information to make a sound judgement of whether or not this is the case.
I hope to have cleared up some of the confusion that seemed to be floating around about what
precisely it is that is going on here. It isn't about merely selling someone else's products, or even selling it at a higher price. Both of these things are perfectly legal in the right context.
TL;DR
"
The Cube"
would be in the wrong
if ;
1. they are attempting to sell
YJ's actual product with "
The Cube"'s trademark replacing YJ's
2. without permission from
YJ
3. in a country that has outlawed this practice
It hasn't been shown that all of these are true as of yet.
**
-----notes------
"Passing off (or palming off, as it is sometimes called) occurs when a producer misrepresents his own goods or services as someone else's. Reverse passing off, as its name implies, is the opposite: The producer misrepresents someone else's goods or services as his own."
-Dastar v Twentieth Century Fox, Justice Scalia
*The moral issue is another factor entirely, but I'd really rather not have to commit to and defend a moral theory in order to make the case that "The Cube" shouldn't have happened.
**Legalities aside, if it turns out that (1, 2) are true while (3) isn't, it's still a dìck move.
