Amtec hit with Sun injunction
Sun claims victory in trademark infringement case
The issue of grey market sales raised its ugly head in the UK channel again last week after Sun confirmed that it had won a court injunction against reseller Amtec Computer Corporation for infringement of its trademark.
Amtec was found guilty of having illegally sold Sun servers originating from Israel and to have subsequently sold them on the UK market without the vendor’s permission.
The injunction announced last week now requires the VAR to provide records of all its Sun product sales since 1999 and to consequently pay Sun damages in respect of all infringing sales since that period.
The injunction also prohibits Amtec from any future trading of unlawfully imported Sun kit and the VAR will also be required to pay all of Sun’s court costs.
Charlotte Selby, partner and alliance sales director at Sun UK, said in a statement: “Customers do take a significant risk when they buy products through unauthorised grey market channels. Unauthorised sales do not qualify for service and unlawfully imported products do not qualify for any warranty support.
“Purchasers of grey market products also face the risk that these products have been reconditioned with counterfeit parts prior to resale.”
The vendor also claimed that the ruling demonstrated its continued commitment to aggressively protecting its intellectual property and trademarks, as well as to maintaining the integrity of its authorised sales channels.
Sun is not the only vendor battling against the grey market at the moment. Networking vendor Cisco is also believed to be teaming up with Trading Standards to launch cases against four of its resellers suspected of selling grey market Cisco kit.
Mike Lawerence, managing director of VAR Bentpenny, said the grey market existed because of vendors’ multi-region pricing.
“The grey market is a civil matter unless resellers have signed an agreement with the vendor not to buy outside a certain country, and they may be bullied into signing this.
“Large vendors like to make examples of resellers in situations where guilt is proven,” he said.
Amtec was unavailable for comment at the time of going to press.