Cybergun is a French airsoft gun manufacturer that manufactures and distributes products under licensed trademark from real gun manufacturers.

History

The history of Cybergun dates back to 1983, when Jérome Marsac and Vincent Bouvet formed a scale model importer and distributor company called CIMB – Commerciale et Industrielle Marsac Bouvet. The company turned out to be a success and rapidly became a leader in the French scale model market. When the company “Les Trois Pylônes” was formed in 1986, it started selling ready-to-fly models. As the business developed, Les Trois Pylônes became an importer and distributor of original Airsoft Gun imitation replica pistols. After selling these replicas on the market "Les 3 Pylones" got into trouble with the French customs regarding the lack of Trademark licences. It is also the origin of the French ban on Airsoft Gun in 1998 where because of the lack of security indications, from there on it had no other choice but to sign its first exclusive European license contract with Smith & Wesson®.

The contract with Smith & Wesson® was later followed by cooperation with big names such as COLT civilian arms everywhere else that North America and Japan, SIG SAUER, TAURUS, IMI for the UZI and Desert Eagle,TANFOGLIO, MAUSER GMBH, AUTO-ORDNANCE for their Thompson and They signed with Mickael KALASHNIKOV for the right to use his name and the company soon became a world leader in the Airsoft gun market. The company changed its name to 3 P and signed a world license with COLT Civilian Firearms devision ,excluding USA and Japan. at the beginning of 2000. The license covered both the brand itself and all its models. In 2001, the name of the company was changed to Cybergun S.A. During the following years the company successfully expanded its market to the USA and new parts of Europe. This was a great success in countrys such as the UK and Germany. Cybergun now as a PLC also are on the stock exchange, the only dedicated air soft or soft air company to achieve this!

Indeed, cybergun has started to have competition now, other companies such as ASG Denmark. The latest are with Steyr Mannlicher and DSA.

The expansion to the USA market under its US Name SoftAirUSA has gone from strength to strength. Now they are in all the major stores in the US, such as Wal-Mart and Sports Academy.

Cybergun are quickly becoming the World number one for all 6mm plastic firing guns.

Intellectual Property

Cybergun S.A. is a major leader in the licensed exact replica pistol market. Its strong position on the market is based on its intellectual property strategies and comprehensive licenses that the company has managed to acquire from the major gun manufacturers; at the end of September 2004, the company acquired a license on the 19th brand name in its brand portfolio . Cybergun has the exclusive rights to use most of the best-known gun trademarks in its portfolio for replica pistols and, therefore, also the right to prevent others from using the same marks. Obviously, this is a significant advantage to Cybergun in relation to its competitors.

Debate

As the licensee of the trademarks in its portfolio, Cybergun is actively pursuing to prevent trademark infringements from taking place. Cybergun is also known for strongly intervening with infringing use of its licensor’s marks. Among some members of the airsoft users community this kind of activity in the trademark protection has been frowned upon. Nonetheless, non-licensed use of a registered trademark by a third party does constitute a trademark infringement, against which measures need to be taken in order to preserve the goodwill of a trademark. The measures taken by Cybergun do not seem to differ from the ones taken by other major rights holders except for the fact that Cybergun is acting as the licensee and not the owner. The purpose and the outcome of the measures are, however, the same: trademark protection.

Readers should think of such infringement of trademarks which belong to Cybergun for 6mm plastic BB guns no different to that of infringements of trade marks such as say Sony or infact any other major brand names, Colt and Smith & Wesson for example have huge history and could be construed as house hold names in this industry.

Piracy and coping of guns helps no one, it can only damage the market for everyone involved, as in seen today in the DVD and music CD industries.

On this point, Cybergun has helped develop many hundreds of new models and innovations to the airsoft community and therefore have its trademarks respected.

Cybergun The Worlds largest selection of licensend products, the first company to sign a major firearm manufacturer such as COLT, UZI, KALASHNIKOV etc etc. Now one of the worlds largest suppliers.

See also==

Airsoft

Airsoft guns

List of Airsoft Manufacturers

Legal issues in airsoft

House Resolution Bill- 607 Military Toy Replica Act: PROHIBITION ON DEFENSE CONTRACTORS REQUIRING LICENSES OR FEES FOR USE OF MILITARY LIKENESSES AND DESIGNATIONS.

==References

External Links

The Cybergun Website

Bold text