In EU, a land that worships fair market practices, that recently booked two of the biggest names in the IT industry (Intel, Microsoft) for anti-competitive market malpractices, and penalized them for billions of Dollars, one would expect high standards of business practices. Apparently one has to peel the onion to find it's not all that fresh inside. Aquatuning, a German reseller has found an interesting way of locking its competitors out, of pretty much everything it does. The store deals in high-performance PC component cooling products, such as water-cooling components. In order to make sure nobody else in the country sells what it does, the company is registering the brands its sells, under its own name.
For example, the store sells DangerDen products. DangerDen is an American company, which has its brand name and company logo (trademark) registered in the US (which apparently must be respected in all countries where it sells its merchandise). Aquatuning "registered" the name in Germany, and stakes claim to it. This prohibits other resellers to source the product. This, because it fears another company would do the same to it. It doesn't stop here. The retailer already sent a cease-and-desist letter to a competitor.
Interestingly, one of Aquatuning's three CEOs, happens to be the founder of Alphacool, a popular water-cooling component maker, which sells to the same region. The original owners of the brands, such as Bitspower, Danger Den, Koolance, Swiftech, Thermochill, XSPC, etc., are being served with different stories on why their brand names were re-registered outside US, without permission, a known reason being the one earlier mentioned. The move prevents other retailers from selling the same products, stifling competition. Aquatuning could hold the power to dictate prices in Germany, unless action is taken by the trademark holders, or the law of the land.
Wouldn't need a huge fine to make aquatuning to bankrupt, ten million would do probably.
