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It is stated in the new EU General Product Safety Regulation, Article 13: Cases in which obligations of manufacturers apply to other persons 1. A natural or legal person shall be deemed to be a manufacturer for the purposes of this Regulation and shall be subject to the obligations of the manufacturer set out in Article 9 where that natural or legal person places a product on the market under the natural or legal person's name or trademark.
Blue Guide and Council Decision 93/465/EEC, Article R6 – on marketing of products, also support this statement.
Looking at the current EU General Product Safety Directive, the producer definition:
'producer' shall mean: (i) the manufacturer of the product, when he is established in the Community, and any other person presenting himself as the manufacturer by affixing to the product his name, trade mark or other distinctive mark, or the person who reconditions the product;
My interpretation is that, under the Directive, producer is either the real manufacturer or the trademark owner. it is possible to market a product under a trademark that does not belong to the producer; although this conflicts with the Blue Guide and the Regulation 93/465. However, with the new Regulation that will come into force as of December 2024, manufacturer of the product must be the trademark owner inline with the Blue Guide.
Is there an exception allowing distributors to use their trademarks on the product with entering into an agreement with the manufacturer like we have in MDR.