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Mercedes Benz Star Logo

Posted by Brian Dewart on October 13, 2008, 10:53 pm
Brian Dewart

I recieved a letter today from MB UK stating i have been using the Star Logo on my web site and my service stamp. I have to destroy anything with the logo within 28days and send MB £300 to cover legal costs.
Has anyone come across this before.

Re: Mercedes Benz Star Logo

Posted by Paul Foster on October 14, 2008, 1:04 pm, in reply to "Mercedes Benz Star Logo"
Paul Foster

£300 for a letter!

If you are a member of your Chamber of Commerce or another professional body you may have legal cover through that. If so it would be worth getting some legal advice. It may be that MB are right in that it's a copyright infringment but I've never heard of this approach.

Are you sure it's definitely from MB UK and not a scam?

Good luck. Paul.

Re: Mercedes Benz Star Logo

Posted by John CW kennard on October 14, 2008, 1:19 pm, in reply to "Re: Mercedes Benz Star Logo"
John Kennard

Sounds like a scam to me our local Mercedes Benz specialist has the star plastered all over his premises & paperwork. I would be very wary of sending off £300.00 I feel that is the give away that it from a fraudster. Take advice locally before sending off any cheque.
John Kennard.

Re: Mercedes Benz Star Logo

Posted by Brian Dewart on October 14, 2008, 4:26 pm, in reply to "Re: Mercedes Benz Star Logo"
Brian Dewart

I wish it was a scam but the letter is from MB UK.
I have phoned and they have confirmed this.
Thanks
BD

Re: Mercedes Benz Star Logo

Posted by paul whatmough on October 14, 2008, 6:42 pm, in reply to "Re: Mercedes Benz Star Logo"
Paul Whatmough

Brian same thing happened to a garage in my area, but this was Jaguar. A chap from Jag walked in one day told him to remove all the Jag logos or legal action would be taken. They have their dealerships looking at garages they deliver parts to and then report back to head office anyone using copywright material. Funny thing was when he asked for clarification of what needed to be removed, they told him that the Jaguar leaping to the right was copywright but not the Jaguar leaping to the left. He altered the logs so that the Jags leapt to the left and changed the font in the word Jaguar problem solved! Look into slightly altering the orientation of the star, slightly offset it or you could even try it upside down. Same with the text these people dont own the right to the word Mercedes,only the style and text used. If all else fails get the wife to change her name to Mercedes and name the garage after her

Re: Mercedes Benz Star Logo

Posted by paul goswell on October 14, 2008, 9:38 pm, in reply to "Re: Mercedes Benz Star Logo"
Paul Goswell

a mate had same problem about 12 years ago he was a volvo specialist a guy walked in from volvo and threatened him with legal action for his logo etc it cost him a small fortune to get a barrister involved but all he had to do was change the font on the v of volvo in fact he just turned it round and altered the blue of the sign he is still trading today as a volvo specialist and theres nothing they can do hope this helps

Re: Mercedes Benz Star Logo

Posted by Shaun Dale on October 15, 2008, 10:55 am, in reply to "Re: Mercedes Benz Star Logo"
Shaun Dale

I believe a friend of mine got the same grief from Landrover, don't think they took money off him though, I think they just threatened legal action. He has his company name in a green oval now

.

Shaun

Re: Mercedes Benz Star Logo

Posted by Andy Amor on October 15, 2008, 2:59 pm, in reply to "Re: Mercedes Benz Star Logo"
Andy Amor - Autodiagnos

Hello Brian

Sadly, this is normal practice by the VM's and it is an infringement of copyright without their permission. If anyone uses a VM's 'logo' without permission, one day, they will catch up with you.

However, if you take a close up photograph of the VM's badge from the grille/bonnet etc... this is not infringement for some reason?

I'm no lawyer as you know, but I understand this to be correct... Hopefully?

See example

http://www.autodiagnos.com/en/support/connector-locations/

Kind regards

Andy Amor

Re: Mercedes Benz Star Logo

Posted by Sean Connelly on October 16, 2008, 9:14 am, in reply to "Re: Mercedes Benz Star Logo"
Sean Connelly

We had the same from Honda when we first started full time about 15 years ago. They had seen one of our flyers that we were using to target local Honda owners.

We sent them a letter saying how we were sorry, we had just started business and had invested in some advertising material which we couldn't afford to waste but wouldn't get anymore printed; we hadn't meant to harm the good name of Honda but improve upon it by offering an excellent service using their values; we weren't trying to pass ourselves off as being Honda affiliated or con any Honda owners, etc.

We never heard from them again. We did change the Honda logo we used on all future advertising material by using a standard font (Wide Latin) that looks very much like the Honda font but is different enough.

Though we do get people like Yellow Pages, Thomson Local who just go ahead and print adverts, etc using the actual Honda logo despite our constant attempts to tell them to use Wide Latin font as we show them!

I would therefore write to them and take whatever steps you need to satisfy them (change website & service stamp....won't cost much) but don't send them £300 as you don't believe you need to if you've done what they have asked.....and no court is going to request that you do either, especially in the current financial market.

HTH

Sean

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