Ebay pulled my listing twice!

[Roughwear]

Twice the ELC Irvin which I have on ebay has been pulled by the auction site because Aviation Leathercraft, who owns the rights to the "Irvin" trademark decided to report me. I have now removed "Irvin" from the listing. I understand its within their rights to do this, but it seems very petty to me. The issue is if anyone sells an original Irvin jacket will this happen again?

I have sold an early ELC Irvin and used "Irvin" in the description with no problem. Perhaps ALC are selling so few jackets these days they have nothing better to do than watch their rivals' jackets being sold on ebay!

 

[havocpaul]

They object to the 'Eastman Irvin' title which is why ELC have never been able to use the name Irvin which Av.leathercraft have the rights to; they can't pull any originals as they don't have rights over the wartime period company. It does seem petty especially as their so-called 'genuine' Irvin is a poor comparision to ELC' RAF jacket. They must have too much time on their hands to be policing eBay!

 

[havocpaul]

As a follow-up, they bought the rights to the Irvin name after it ceased to be active as a company. Anyone can apply to do this hence I guess Aero (Scotland) owing that name, I'm not sure if ELC 'own' Roughwear name now, if they do they don't seem to get petty over its use by other repro makers. Original WW2 Irvin Airchute jackets, suits etc do not belong to the new 'owners' so they cannot police the selling of originals and if they tried I would hope a seller would kick their backsides. They ought to concentrate on improving their jacket quality and authenticity rather than 'cry' over the name Irvin!

 

[Roughwear]

Thanks for the clarification Paul about originals. I do think ALC is very narrow minded about this. Perhaps they see ELC as a threat, especially as ALC sell inferior IRVINS! :roll:

 

[havocpaul]

ALC are now owned by Mota-Lita and on their home page this is their info on their rights to the Irvin:

"In the early ‘70s he thought it would be fun to find a WWII style flying jacket to wear and this lead to Moto-Lita producing the famous Irvin RAF Flying Jacket. While trying to locate a jacket for himself, Simon discovered the history of the original, flying jacket, designed by Leslie Irvin (who also invented the parachute rip-cord system). Simon contacted Irvin GB, the company that had made the flying jackets for the RAF only to discover that the original jackets had gone out of production. With the same enthusiasm that had built the success of his steering wheels, Simon borrowed photographs from Irvin and a jacket from the RAF museum at Hendon. From those he made a pattern and a sample jacket. He took the jacket to Irvin GB and they subsequently gave him their approval, granting him permission to produce the Irvin RAF Flying Jacket and to use the Irvin name and logo.

No other company has been granted these rights and from this point in the early 70s Simon has been the only manufacturer of the genuine Irvin RAF Flying Jacket, each one made to the exacting standards that Simon’s customers have come to expect".

I remember there was a motorcycle shop on the Old Kent Road who sold these in the 1970's, I bought one at the time and memory tells me that they were far superior to the current ALC ones. They could also be ordered via Exchange and Mart.

 

[Roughwear]

I have seen 1970s ALC jackets and yes they are closer to originals than the current teddy bear jackets.

 

[asiamiles]

I do think ALC is very narrow minded about this. Perhaps they see ELC as a threat, especially as ALC sell inferior IRVINS!

Yes, all actions like this accomplish is to engender bad feeling; if the people had half-a-brain - or should I say, a little common sense - they would realise this. I remember having an Hawaiian shirt (made by Sun Surf which is the same co. as Buzz Rickson's) pullled because I mentioned the original designer from the 50's...the company who now "owned" the name weren't even making any shirts, but obviously had nothing better to do than try to stop others selling them, though HPA had them listed on their site so presumably they could nothing to stop them selling them suggesting that legally selling these imported shirts was perfectly okay.

 

[joeson]

On a side note,I believe Aero own the name Higwayman and produce a jacket that has no similarity to the original Highwayman motorcyle jackets,made by Rivetts of Leytonstone.This efectivly means that no one can now reproduce these superior jackets under the name Highwayman.
What is the point?

 

[jacketimp]

oh dear......... intellectual property rights.........

 

[rich]

Warner Bros tried to litigate against the Marx brothers for using 'Casablanca' in a film title - wish I could find a copy of the letter Groucho wrote to them about it................

 

[deeb7]

... wish I could find a copy of the letter Groucho wrote to them about it................

http://www.groucho.com/

 

[rich]

That's Brilliant David, thanks for that - I first read it in his autobiography a long time ago, hope it's as I remember!

Just read it, excellent stuff