Last summer, Schwalbe began marking its high-quality tires with a barcode. This makes it possible to trace the channels through which each individual bicycle tire reaches the buyer. According to Schwalbe, this measure serves quality assurance and market transparency. The aim is to prevent tires from original bicycle equipment from being sold individually to bikers at knockdown prices.

Display in case of missing code
These days, Schwalbe has published a press release in which the company's lawyer reports on the initial consequences. According to the article, the first tires have appeared with the EAN code removed. As announced, Schwalbe rejects any warranty and guarantee in these cases and is pressing charges. The tire manufacturer sees the removal of the incorporated code as wilful damage to the tire with a corresponding safety risk and an infringement of trademark rights.Buses for image use
At practically the same time, several smaller German online store operators reported that they had been warned by Schwalbe with an invoice for several hundred euros. The reason: The retailers had used official Schwalbe product photos in their store, which the tire manufacturer punished as a copyright infringement. The retailer R2-Bike from Dresden also writes that it has been approached by Schwalbe for allegedly misleading customers. He had offered the tires with the weights he had weighed himself and not with the weights officially communicated by Schwalbe, which were often significantly lower.The retailers affected are not only pure online stores, but also larger specialist stores that operate an online store in parallel to their retail store. As they have indicated several times in their reports to the public, they suspect that the warning is a punishment for offering Schwalbe tires below the recommended retail price.Boycott threats on the net
The wave of warnings might not lead to the hoped-for effect of brand management for Schwalbe. Instead of quietly accepting the fine, many of the warned stores publicized the case and vented their anger. As a result, the warnings are already being hotly debated in the online biking community. In the MTB-News.de forum, a post about this was read over 32,000 times within 24 hours and commented on almost 300 times. The majority of reactions were negative, with many bikers expressing their solidarity with the online retailers and announcing that they would use tires from other brands in future.Memories of Jack Wolfskin
In the worst-case scenario, the case could develop for Schwalbe in a similar way to Jack Wolfskin's copyright lawsuits. Last fall, the outdoor manufacturer issued warnings to several small manufacturers because they used a motif on their products that looked similar to Jack Wolfskin's paw logo. After a fierce wave of protest in forums and blogs and reports in the daily media (e.g. the German TAZ), Jack Wolfskin withdrew the warnings. What remained was immense damage to Jack Wolfskin's image.