Using product information from official website.

[daigest]

Hi,
I have been hired to help start a company, and that company is going to be a third party re-seller. Basically, the website will contain a list of products, with information about them. The question is, and I have contacted philips's Intellectual property official, but no response.. Can we use product information/description provided on philips's website and post it on our website, of course providing the original source, and a statement on every page stating that product information came from official websites. I went through their IP policies, and still not clear.

Thanks.
P.S if there's already a post like this, I apologize, I looked and couldn't find..

 

[army judge]

Hi,
I have been hired to help start a company, and that company is going to be a third party re-seller. Basically, the website will contain a list of products, with information about them. The question is, and I have contacted philips's Intellectual property official, but no response.. Can we use product information/description provided on philips's website and post it on our website, of course providing the original source, and a statement on every page stating that product information came from official websites. I went through their IP policies, and still not clear.

Thanks.
P.S if there's already a post like this, I apologize, I looked and couldn't find..

If this is to be a business enterprise, start off right, hire a lawyer to help you.

Self help remedies and internet help won't give your customer base much confidence in your ability to deliver.

If you are to be a reseller of their products you probably can do what you desire.

But, don't take the word of some dummy on the 'net, because if I'm wrong, you can't say that dummy on the 'net told me its okay.

Well, you can say it, but it won't help you.

 

[daigest]

I would, but one of the problems living in Alaska is that we don't have too many professionals, I mean truly professional people who know exactly what they do (at least in the corporate copyright field). Those that do know, I am afraid neither I nor my client would be able to afford. I would not be posting questions here if I or my client had enough $ to hire a corporate lawyer. So, for now, this forum is all that I have in regards of a lawyer. Though, I appreciate your honest reply "army judge".

And yes, this business is to be a re-seller of original products.

 

[sunnymoon]

I am confused why you cannot get information from Phillip Intellectual Property official. What you are doing is beneficial for them. You are doing marketing for them for free. So they would not reject that offer and I don't think there is any problem with that.
In addition, the information you get is from the Phillip's site, so you are not revealing proprietary information.
Final, you cite the source of the information you get, so you are not "plagiarizing". Think of an author who writes a book, does he or she need to ask about 100 other authors to cite the information in those books? I don't think they would do it.
Best

 

[Michael Wechsler]

Sunny - I think this is a good approach to thinking about the willingness of Phillips to allowing you to copy the information. There are issues depending upon the amount of information copied - the Fair Use Exception, e.g. copying just one paragraph of a book versus copying the entire text Phillips may have on their web page about something.

However, I don't think there is any copyright issue at all concerning product specs- description might be another issue but typically there will be releases for this kind of information as it's meant to be republished. I haven't looked but you might want to try to contact the PR or marketing division instead of IP.

Regarding the product specifications, that is just fact. Anyone can report that a, e.g. mobile phone has a 4.3" amoled screen along with 4GB of internal memory and capable of 24 bit color. That's a little different from the description.