Bob says...
I think the salient point is in the last sentence. No one was trying to take over Campy's market, they just want to keep their dear old bikes looking like when they were made.
snip...
But I think the first part is the one that counts...
>Under trademark law, if the owner of a mark does not actively police its
>mark and prohibit the unauthorized use of the mark, it risks losing its
>exclusive rights to that mark.
snip
Intellectual Property and TM law is here to stay and it will only get worse.
As an owner of a twenty five year old BMW motorcycle, I think I can refute the assertion that BMW cares about keeping the vast numbers of it's vintage motorcycles on the road. 2001 was the first year that BMW no longer required its mechanics to be certified in the air-cooled type 247 engine, which has served their R series bikes from 1969 to 1995. It is because the bikes were so well designed and made, that there are thousands of them still on the roads and subsequently the market was there for them to make decent profits on parts. Dealers have stopped keeping inventory on /5 bikes (1970 - 1973) and they will likely continue the practise of weeding out the old bikes. It is common knowledge that BMW considers the "Airhead" 247 bike to be a fringe market and true profits lie in selling $20,000 cruisers with clothing and accessories. Of course the new bikes cannot be serviced by shady-tree mechanics. You must pay $60/hr to remap that faulty fuel injection. Please give me a carb...
As for keeping a BMW 100% authentic, you have to have very deep pockets. An original Hella signal flasher unit at the dealer is $75...$9 to buy a suitable generic unit at the auto parts store. I forget the number of parts in a Beemer but I think it's up near a thousand and it's just not feasible to source out all OEM parts.
Campagnolo is a sizeable company with big overhead and low profit margins in a competitive market. They would likely make more money on ten 50th Anniversary groupos than they would selling gum hoods for a decade...unless they really gouged us, which would be even more offensive. It's a shame that some vintage parts just decompose with time. If you went to look at two identical, all original Masi's and one of them had cracked older hoods and the other had pristine hoods made out of a newer, more resilient material, which one will you buy? I think a re-issued gum hood would still be considered less desireable.
Warren Young
Toronto