After a long time thinking on this I sent the following message to SAC's lawyer. Thanks to Mark Schynert for the doctrine of laches and DC comics part.Know it won't change anything but hey their fight is with Revell. Hub
Mr. Pasulka: My email was to give you a point to see if there were any agreements or in older days permission granted to a model company(license agreements were not always required in the old days). Aurora was bought by Monogram in the
1970's and they in turn by Revell in 1990's.While I do understand protecting SAC property, do you have any idea just how much BAD publicity your action against this one lone ebayer has generated for SAC? It is the talk of most model websites and newsgroups and I can tell you that you and SAC are not coming out on the good end of this.
Personally I don't care as I don't build models of eggbeaters anyway but the amount of bad press you and your company are now getting is enormous. Next you will probably go after models of Sikorsky's(Igor's not SAC's) WWI aircraft designed and built in Russia. By taking on a guy on ebay and not the company that produced the item you are creating a good David vs. Goliath story that news media loves to spread. You and SAC will come out looking like the bad guys no matter what you do.Have you ever heard of the doctrine of laches. How would you feel if modelers started a class action in federal court against Sikorsky and you personally for restraint of trade for attempting to assert alleged rights that have lapsed due to willful inattention (old kits not one of new designs). In fact Sikorsky is using a comic book company's(DC) service mark or trademark with Blackhawk which has been around since the 1940's, and SAC probably owes the publisher a fortune for infringement using your logic.In the '60's, '70's and '80's aircraft and auto makers wanted and even PAID model companies to do models of their products as they saw it for what it was FREE ADVERTISING and also helped with name recognition and product association(Ah, for the good old days)This is just pure corporate greed, your fight is with Revell and not Joe Schmo who bought the kit decided not to build it and now wants to sell it. And corporations don't understand while they are reviled and held in contempt. It is for petty crap like this.
Again, I don't really care as I build models of things with wings but you have just insured SAC of bad publicity for a long time coming. Our litigious society is really sad.And all this is from a conservative republican!
FWIW Hub