Legal Question in Business Law in Washington

Re: Using existing brand name products in my product

Certainly, you should be able to sell brand name products. You would presumably buy the products from a wholesale distributor and you would be selling them retail in your lunchbox.

If you want to ADVERTISE that you are including (for example) Frito chips or Treetop juices in your box, you should get permission from the trademark holders to use their brand names and trademarks in your advertising.

Once you get your idea planned out, you might want to buy an hour or so of an attorney's time to look at everything you have planned, to make sure you haven't missed something. Do you need a food handling license? What other licenses might you need? Do you need liability insurance? Any trademark violation problems in your marketing plan? You get the idea.

Good luck with your enterprise!

Re: Using existing brand name products in my product

You may be getting into others' trademark rights if you sell their products inside yours without their permission. Infringing on trademark rights is not something you want to do; it's often horribly expensive to get out of that.

You can, of course, contact the manufacturers of the products you wish to sell and license the sale in your lunchbox (for a fee).

Feel free to contact me offline if I can be of further help to you.

THE INFORMATION PRESENTED HERE IS GENERAL IN NATURE AND IS NOT INTENDED, NOR SHOULD IT BE CONSTRUED, AS LEGAL ADVICE. FOR SPECIFIC ADVICE ABOUT YOUR PARTICULAR SITUATION, CONSULT YOUR ATTORNEY.