British Bike Bits owns "A" Dunstall registered trade mark both a UK mark and a Euro mark but NOT the one owned by Paul Dunstall or connected to his company. British Bits Bits are perfectly entitiled to design and manufacture a new range of products called Dunstall, The posts seem to ask if it is the old company or a new one, its a brand new trade mark for a new company and new products called Dunstall, bit like buying an aged domain name to use the backlinks and traffic from the old one
Trade marks are licenced for 10 years (except Canada 15 years and USA which has a 5 year licence when first registered and 10 thereafter) Once the mark expires someone else can apply for a new mark of the same name but they dont get the company with it, they have to buy that off the owner.
Unless someone recently has bought the rights, The actual company owned by Paul Dunstall still has a legal owner but as they are no longer involved in the bike industry they didnt renew the licence. They dont lose the rights to that brand and products by not relicencing the mark, its simply downgraded to the same level as the brand in the 1960's before Paul registered it,, registration just gives additional protection from passing off by others using your name. If someone does try and use the name you have a mark for, it is upto the owner to take legal action, the trade mark office is used as a referance point in court but rarely take action themselves.
The Dunstall brand name (as of Paul dunstall's old company) was owned by a large motorcycle concern who went into admin a few years ago, however the trade marks and rights had been transfered to a holding company a few years before,, then licenced the use of to the manufacturing company,, when they went into admin the licence was broken and the rights returned to the holding company which is still intact otherwise the trade marks would have been sold via the admin in the same way as all the Frank Thomas marks were sold to J & S.
British Bike Bits registered a new trade mark called Dunstall (after the old one had expired) firstly in the UK then Euro for motorcycle use. Specialising in Hinckley Triumphs, by all accounts the parts are well made and designed correctly.The complete Triumph on the facebook page looks pretty kool to me but it is not Paul Dunstall's old company or the rights to its logos and parts or history.
The owner of the genuine company owned by Paul Dunstall (unless someone has bought them in the last few months) still holds the copyrights to logos, photos etc,, goodwill to race history, world records etc, manufacturing rights to Decibel/Power silencers, twin disc forks (two sets, nine and ten inch discs), spine frames, exhursts, cams, 810 barrells etc, it is not known if the tooling exists at his time. None of which was lost in the admin of the other company, only the trade mark for the car parts Magnex was involved in the admin.
Hopefully the two parties will one day find a solution join the companies togeather in the future so the old Dunstall parts will be remade legally instead of the fake ones offered on the internet from India and China.
I am sure this post will raise a few eyebrows and i am expecting a bit of flack, but over the years I have been in touch with all parties concerned and the two companies who handled the admin orders (one for cars, one for bikes), I also own 4 reg trade marks of my own (two in the UK) so I do know a little of the legal aspect of this, I have also been in constant touch with the owner of Paul's old company since they bought it in 1988 until about 9 months ago.
