Re: Grey Imports

Subject: Re: Re: Grey Imports

Comments:
: : I work for a UK subsidiary of a US company who is part of a US corporation with sales of almost $5 billion worldwide. : : My US office has been purchasing an engineered item from the US office of a European manufacturer. This item is of top quality and has some patented features, which has enabled the US office of the manufactures to get the item specified within a certain market sector and as a result, the item carries a price premium. In the UK and the rest of Europe this market sector does not exist and the item does not carry this price premium. The item carries the manufacturer's name but is marketed by our US office as part of a kit. : : I have been involved in the purchase of these items in the UK on a covert basis and shipping them to our US office where they are mixed with some small quantities of the items still purchased from the manufacturer's US office. The manufacturer of these items has no idea what is going on. I am aware that we have saved my company well over $1 million in 12 months. Our gain is our supplier's loss! : : Are there any US trademark or intellectual property laws being infringed in this covert operation? : I would be very interested in any followups myself. There was talk of a major foreign sportscar dealership here in the U.S. that possibly discussing rewriting importation laws to their favor in order to restrict import of any "grey market" cars into the country. In fact, they were thinking about trying to have the laws rewritten in order to retroactively grab grey market vehicles via that same proposed statute. In effect, this would make a monopoly on such foreign sports cars coming into the country. I don't know how true this is but it would be a shame if one entity was able to have such a stranglehold on items entering the U.S.

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