Seems legit

I previously blogged about a post communist Poland entering the open market economy. Laws and regulations regarding patents and trademarks stayed behind for quite a long time.
Missed it? Click Video games in Poland
Click Adidasy for a quick introduction to footwear in Poland.

2018
The funny thing is that I still see pretty absurd things being sold in Warsaw nowadays, almost 30 years later. And not only on the black market.

A typical bazar stand

Let's have a closer look.

Seems legit...

Trade
Of course we have some illegal trade on black markets in the Netherlands as well, but there it gets surrounded by fear of getting caught. Merchants of fake Nike trainers are constantly looking over their shoulders as they can get in serious trouble with their trade. I know for a fact that Nike Netherlands have a full army tracing and prosecuting counterfeit sellers of their products. A small inventory of lets say 50 pairs of trainers could risk a claim of tens of thousands of Euros, not accepting will result in a court case where the impact to the seller will be even bigger. Respected trademark lawyers will always advise to  immediately settle a fine with the American giant. Always.

Regular retail
The hypermarket phenomenon did not really become succesful in the Netherlands, but here I see tons of them. Tesco, Kaufland, Carrefour, Auchan and E.Leclerc are the big players. I took the below picture at one of the locations of these chain stores.

What you see is a bunch of replicas of Nike's popular AirMax90 model, but without their trademark logo and name.
You will never find these in regular Dutch retail, not a chance. Of course the trademark logo and name are the most important to brands, but also copying designs is not legal and can bring you in big trouble. We even have a subculture which wears these, 'Gabbers.' Like many subcultures they are connected to a music stream, extremely loud, hard and fast house music in this case. Skinheads wear Doc Martens boots, Gabbers wear AirMax trainers.

Trademark laws
It really looks like the laws concerning trademarks are the same by now, you do not see many of the exact replicas on markets. It's the copying of the design where Poland seems to be less strict.
Or it's simply too time consuming to investigate. I expect that jurisdiction is just different, otherwise a big name chain store would never place these on their shelves. Right? I am not too sure :-)

Target market
You will not see many teenagers wearing these, they want the real deal. Or perfect replicas from Ali Express or other Asian online marketplaces. Getting back to the AirMax90 model; I also own some pairs of them. The model has been extremely popular in the Netherlands for around 25 years now and to my surprise I have seen quite some 'babcias' wearing these on the streets (the ones without trademark). You remember babcia right, a grandma with super powers.

Super babcia

The above picture I did not take myself, I do not want to get troubles with babcia.