[Rhodes22-list] advice needed from litigious Rhodies

David Bradley dwbrad at gmail.com
Thu Nov 5 11:33:31 EST 2009


Stan, I'm a bit late to this thread so have the benefit of the 20+ replies
before.

The issues I would be thinking about (as a marketing guy) are whether you
can offer a modified Catalina boat to the market without "re-branding" it.
There are countless examples of authorized dealers of one OEM reselling
products made by other OEMs (the used Chevy at the Ford dealership), and
those dealers have often improved those products (new tires, whatever).  I
would guess that the local van conversion shop doesn't have a distribution
and co-marketing agreement with a manufacturer.  I'm sure you could call a
few to ask.

The examples of Shelby and AMG are clear examples of co-marketing agreements
and this is what I'd guess you could not do without a partnership agreement
with Catalina.  Partnering with Catalina may be interesting, but it seems
unlikely to me that they would put time and energy into it given their focus
on larger boats.  If I were them I wouldn't be very interested in a
co-branding agreement with GBI. Little to gain, and their brand is exposed.

It seems that the issue to focus on is whether GBI can legally offer a
converted Catalina boat for sale to the general public so long as you don't
represent GBI as a Catalina dealer or "brand" the new offering.  In this
context, you would be promoting GBI as a used boat dealer providing an
aftermarket service.

Make sense?  Ben, does this help to focus the legal questions?

Dave





On Thu, Nov 5, 2009 at 5:21 AM, stan <stan at rhodes22.com> wrote:

> thanks for all the feedback - amazingly helpful - but some may have misread
> the program: We are merely buying used Catalinas for a conversion business
> -
> no thought of building molds and building boats from them..     that
> clarification may change some of the legal opinions ?   Ben's points do
> have
> us concerned since we are not doing this as a private party but as a
> commercial venture.   Would that concern be avoided if we took the position
> that each individual "buyer" brought their Catalina to us to alter?
>
> ss
>


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