Comment by ceejayoz
7 years ago
The doctrine of first sale means people can re-sell your products.
It does not mean you have a right to do so on Amazon.
7 years ago
The doctrine of first sale means people can re-sell your products.
It does not mean you have a right to do so on Amazon.
Or more to the point, you cannot claim they are being sold directly from the manufacturer.
Sure, but even if you're openly a reseller, Amazon doesn't have to let you on their platform.
They could say "we'll only let Apple sell Apple products here".
I think it would be challenging to keep track of who the original trademark owner is for every single item and creating a system for them to prove it. There are hundreds of thousands of businesses with thousands of products. And sometimes companies re-brand their products, or buy other companies, etc, etc. Or sometimes the original vendor doesn't ship in a particular country, its always through a distributor, etc, etc.
It's not clear that you can limit a buyer's ability to resell it on any market without a contract with the buyer that may or may not be legal or enforcable based on jurisdiction. It also doesn't seem likely that people willing to defraud people with any agreement.
> It's not clear that you can limit a buyer's ability to resell it on any market
Depends on who the "you" is here.
Nike can't forbid me from reselling shoes. Nike can ask Amazon to willingly forbid me from doing so on their platform, and Amazon can agree.