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“I have an issue with a manufacturing Co. that produced moulded parts for a product which I designed and hold copyright to.
The company produced moulded parts from tooling which I owned. I moved out of the Country for some time and during this period I authorised the supplier to directly supply a certain customer with moulded products from those tools.
The moulding company changed ownership and decided they no longer wanted to produce moulded parts from the tools and we discussed the return of said tooling to me. At that point it was made clear (and acknowledged) that the tooling should not be released to any third party, especially the person to whom I had authorised the supply of parts.
Subsequently the person to whom I had previously authorised the sale of part to visited the moulding company and the staff allowed them to remove the tooling.
This person and an accomplice are now producing the moulded parts at another (unknown) moulding company and openly selling my product on the open market.
The original moulding company has written a couple of weak letters to them requesting the return of the tooling, but are just getting no-where. They now say that although I consider the tooling was stolen, it was in fact an act of deception and as such they have no liability to me, and inferring that I should be grateful that they making any attempt to recover the tooling.
Can anyone offer any advice? I simply don’t have the funds to take these people on, and would appreciate any ideas which might enable the return of the tooling or suitable compensation. I estimate the cost to replace said tooling at over £100,000, but that would not address the fact that I now have a competitor selling my product and eating into the market share.”
The company produced moulded parts from tooling which I owned. I moved out of the Country for some time and during this period I authorised the supplier to directly supply a certain customer with moulded products from those tools.
The moulding company changed ownership and decided they no longer wanted to produce moulded parts from the tools and we discussed the return of said tooling to me. At that point it was made clear (and acknowledged) that the tooling should not be released to any third party, especially the person to whom I had authorised the supply of parts.
Subsequently the person to whom I had previously authorised the sale of part to visited the moulding company and the staff allowed them to remove the tooling.
This person and an accomplice are now producing the moulded parts at another (unknown) moulding company and openly selling my product on the open market.
The original moulding company has written a couple of weak letters to them requesting the return of the tooling, but are just getting no-where. They now say that although I consider the tooling was stolen, it was in fact an act of deception and as such they have no liability to me, and inferring that I should be grateful that they making any attempt to recover the tooling.
Can anyone offer any advice? I simply don’t have the funds to take these people on, and would appreciate any ideas which might enable the return of the tooling or suitable compensation. I estimate the cost to replace said tooling at over £100,000, but that would not address the fact that I now have a competitor selling my product and eating into the market share.”
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