BMW Pushes The Boundries of Intellectual Property Rights

BMW Pushes the Boundaries against Klingshield

Recently a light on the dashboard of my BWM came on. I checked the manual to see if I could find the reason for this, but to no avail. I contacted a local BMW Dealer and was advised that this was a serious problem as the car was overheating. However, I was told that my car could only be booked in three weeks later as their workshop was fully booked! My wife immediately said “The Salesman never told us of these facts when we bought the car”

In view of the above we had to cancel the trip that we planned for our annual leave.

A few days later I received a letter in the post with the “BMW” logo on the envelope, addressed to our company Klingshield. My first thought was ….. “Ahhh … an apology from BMW for their poor service”, which is what one would expect from a classy renown company.

To my utter shock and amazement it was a letter addressed to Klingshield, advising our company to stop infringing on their intellectual property! A question immediately crossed my mind – My company bought and paid for this BMW, is it not therefore “Klingshield’s” property?

On giving this further thought, I began to wonder if the car manufacturer was not perhaps upset, as on the Klingshield website we have made it known to our readers that Klingshield Smash & Grab window film has been applied to many BMW’s over the past 38 years, as well as to various other motor vehicle brands on the market.

Klingshield window film, once applied to the side and back windows of all cars, strengthens the windows, therefore making it more difficult for would-be smash & grabbers to penetrate through the car windows. In fact we apply our product to numerous BMW cars for BMW dealerships. BMW have also utilised our product in their head office in South Africa.

One would think that BMW would appreciate the fact that Klingshield’s smash & grab window film is safeguarding BMW owners from violent attacks on motor cars as experienced in South Africa, which by the way is one of the most crime infested countries in the world.

I personally feel that this kind of behaviour and threat from a prestigious company like BMW is pathetic and they should get their priorities in order.

I have replied to the letter received from BMW and now await their response to see which way the wind will blow, as the subject of valuation of intellectual property certainly is a complex and interesting one!

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