Legal Updates

One may use trademarks of a manufacturer to sell original products or parts thereof after repackaging

October 30, 2019
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An Israeli company acquires different perfumes, imports them to Israel by parallel importation, opens them, transfers the contents to small vials of 8 ml each and sells them. On each vial, the company notes, inter alia, the perfume manufacturer's name and the perfume's name. A French manufacturer of perfumes contended that this is a trademark violation.
The Court held that the perfumes may be sold after re-bottling using the manufacturer's trademarks for that purpose, provided that the consumer is not misled. The sale of a "real" trademarked merchandise does not constitute a trademark infringement, even if the merchandise was not purchased directly from the trademark owner (parallel importation). A purchaser of a branded product may resell products which it lawfully purchased and may also sell parts of the product and not the product as a whole and use the trademarks of the manufacturer to indicate that the manufacturer's product was used as a major, if not a single, component of the packaging content and for identification purposes. However, the use should clearly reflect the state of things as being and the absence of the seller's connection to the manufacturer and its operation.