We got Sued by Cinestill :(

Cinestill Inc V. CatLABS:

A few months ago, Cinestill sued us and many other small businesses around the world. Some of these business that got sued are as small as a one person entrepreneurs just scraping by through sales of film directly to their communities. They sued us for what they see as an infringement of the trademark "800T" which they only registered late in 2022, just a few months before launching this global legal "assault". Now, it turns out that all of this effort was to try and stop a company from selling a product that competes with Cinestill's own, by threatening legal action against any stores and small businesses who carried this competing product, going as far as putting some sellers at risk of being banned from platforms they sell on due to direct complaints from Cinestill to these platforms on the grounds of trademark violations. 

At first, we got a personal email with a veiled threat from Cinestill, that if we do not comply with a vague and ambiguous demand, they will take legal action against us. After we asked for more specific information and clarification as to what exactly the problem is, Cinestill told us that any use of their trademark registered "800T" to describe and sell ANY product is infringing on their trademark and that any further use of the words 800 and Tungsten "or similar" to describe any product we sell would constitute an infringement against them which will result in them taking legal action against us, again with some further veiled threats. Later, they also added in an email that any variation or similar use of their trademark "800T" such as 800Tungsten, 800T, T800 and so on are strictly verboden (these are examples they gave). Cinestill sent out several such threat letters/emails to various companies in the US and all around the world in their attempt to block a competitor product.

When we asked what product we sell that is causing all this turmoil (as Cinestill was being very vague and never actually said it at first), they linked to the Reflx Labs 800 film (link) which we started offering just a few days prior. 

Finally, when we refused to comply with this demand, they actually sued us! The suite not only accused us of infringing on their trademark but also demanded we keep the law suite confidential and that we are not allowed to publish or discuss it. It actually went as far as demanding that we hand over all kinds of records and invoices related and unrelated to this matter. 

Naturally, our lawyer told them to get lost and warned them that this action, of interfering with another company's business is grounds of legal action against them. Thankfully, we never heard back. 

Can a number or letter actually be trademarked?

We later heard from an expert trademark lawyer that the trademark "800T" should not have been allowed in the first place because it would have never withstood even the most basic judicial scrutiny if it ever went to court, as it is a descriptor or designator of specifications, neither of which are allowed to be registered as trademarks. Further the fact they sent blanket threats against so many people with bogus claims might have opened them up to massive liability for damages related to this type of interfering business practice which is illegal and damaging where lawyers were salivating at the chance to counter sue Cinestill for this activity, maybe someone might still do this. More on this later in the article. 

Jut this little escapade of going back and forth with lawyers, defending from this action has cost us many thousands of dollars. We can only imagine the damage this has done and is doing to others. 

What is JET (the difference between motion picture and conventional photographic film)?

Because motion picture film is intended to travel through the camera at relatively high speeds (at least 24 frames per second), it is coated  with a special thick layer called "REM JET" (or just JET), that can absorb scratches, knocks and bumps that can be caused by the film speeding through the camera and magazines. It also has other effects such as reducing halation (since motion picture cameras have no "back plate" or "pressure plate" to prevent reflections inside the film which can cause a halation effect) as well prevent "light piping" (motion picture film is made of super strong, non ripping, polyester base, to prevent it from tearing inside the camera when travelling at high speeds, polyester is a light ducting material, much like fiber optics, which allows light to travel through the films base and cause unwanted light leaks or exposure, which is known as light piping as the light is "piped" through the base of the film). 

To do this, the REM JET (or just JET) layer is removed. This is normally done as part of the standard ECN2, motion picture film processing. This is usually done in huge processing machines that run the film through the various processing solutions at super high speed (relative to how C41 is done) and most often the film that runs through the processor is also of immense length, measured in hundreds or thousands of feet, as opposed to the relatively short ~1.5m length of a standard 36 exposure 35mm film. 

Once removed, the JET is a sticky, gooey hot mess that clings, stains and smudges anything it touches. It can be a real pain to clean it up if it gets into someplace it shouldn't be and super hard to wash it off films if particles of JET touch them while in another part of the process sequence. In the ENC2 machines, the JET is removed from the film and then filtered out of the rest of the process to prevent this from happening. 

Ironically, the very reason for being of all 35mm cameras, the historical origin of 35mm cameras, was the need to be able to test motion picture film fast and without having to run it on an actual movie camera. Oscar Barnack of Leica solved this problem with his Leica I camera design and the rest was history. So it should not be a surprise that anyone would want to shoot motion picture film in a still camera.

Motion picture film has been around forever and historically, it was, at times, cheaper to buy then conventional photographic film or offered technical properties not available at the time with "stills" film and as such, industrious photographers would sometimes buy bulk motion picture film and load small sections of it to 35mm cassettes to be shot in a still camera. 

A college friend who worked in the movie industry was once gifted some "short ends", leftover motion picture film, that was in the camera magazine, but which is too short for the next shot/scene being filmed and thus must be unloaded.) which he then loaded into 35mm cassettes, shot and processed in our college's Jobo processor using standard C41 color film processing. Upon opening the Jobo processing tank, to his dismay, he found that everything inside was coated in black gunk, the film reels were nearly all black, the film was littered with black dots/particles and the tank itself was also coated with the remnants of the JET. Suffice to say, that tank and reels were a total write off as it was next to impossible to clean them out.

Cinestill started out by selling Kodak Vision 500T motion picture film with the JET layer removed, which was then repackaged by Cinestill for sale to consumers. With the JET layer removed, the film could now easily and safely be processed with the standard C41 process, commonly found at film labs around the world. Cinestill uses Kodak Vision 500T (Kodak Cat number 5219) to make its Cinestill 800T film to this day.

What is Tungsten?

Tungsten is a rare earth element that is notable for having the highest melting point of any element known to man. 

Vision 500T is a Tungsten light balanced film, designed so that when shooting a scene lit with artificial lighting (AKA hot lights or photofloods) the color balance looks natural. Hot lights use an incandescent filament to produce light. Since incandescent bulbs generate mostly heat (about 98% is heat and only 2% light), hot lights often use a filament made of tungsten metal to produce a very bright light as it has such a high melting point and thus the name. This light, however, has a much lower "color temperature" then that of the sun (measured in Kelvin units), usually in the 3200-3400 Kelvin range. The sun, for reference shines at 5200 Kelvin. The lower the number in Kelvins, the redder the light is on the color spectrum. The higher the number, the more blue/purple the light is. Our eye-brain interface knows how to correct for these subtle differences, however, photographic films can only render reality in one pre prescribed way with specific filtration in mind. Thus, films are usually made for either "daylight" or "tungsten light" shooting. When shooting a Tungsten type film indoors, under incandescent lighting conditions, the scene would look as if it were seen by our own eyes. If the same scene was shot with a daylight film, it would appear to have a red/yellow cast or tint. Conversely, when shooting Tungsten film outdoors, under the sun, it produces a blue cast or tint. 

Of course, in our modern era, LED lights are transplanting conventional hot lights as they are now able to produce enough lighting power, previously only possible when using incandescent lamp based or electrode based lights. Since LED's can be designed to emit any desired wavelength (and even modify it on the go), the need for Tungsten balanced film in artificially lighted scenes is greatly reduced as LED's can be made to emit light at exactly 5200K. 

An interesting and relatively unknown fact about Tungsten balanced film is that when it is used with a long exposure beyond the film's original envelope of performance (AKA Reciprocity), it loses its intended color balance and becomes almost neutral in its rendition. This is partly the reason many architectural photographers preferred to use Tungsten balanced film "back in the day", as it enabled them to shoot indoors using strobes/flash lighting in combination with the available natural light and incandescent light present and achieve a balanced color palate so long as they used longer exposures, something that is not possible with conventional "daylight" balanced films. 

Consequently, Cinestill's 800T film is a Tungsten light balanced film, which lends itself for night time shooting, when the world is largely illuminated by incandescent light. 

Why even shoot motion picture film in the first place when there are conventional films around?

Over the past few decades, despite the "resurgence" of film and an ever increasing demand, supply has been getting smaller and smaller. Fuji has largely divested from making consumer film of any kind, greatly reducing the global supply. Today, ironically, some Fuji branded 35mm films available on the market are actually made by Kodak, in Rochester NY then packaged and sold in Fuji labeled boxes and cartridges. With Kodak, the sole remaining color film manufacturer in the world today unable to keep up with the global demand for consumer 35mm color negative film, people began to look elsewhere to fill this gap in the market. Enter motion picture film. 

In the olden days, a company called SFW (Seattle Film Works) already had this idea. They loaded motion picture film into 35mm cartridges and offered a unique, in house ECN2 processing service. So, customers who bought SFW film would also essentially be required to do their processing with SFW, the ultimate captive audience. SFW is long gone and no doubt caused issues to many unwitting labs who ran the ECN2 films in their minilab machines causing much mess and trouble, perhaps to this very day. 

Still, motion picture film happens to be available in great quantities and is often easier to obtain from Kodak in large quantities, much more so than conventional photographic films. Because of an idiosyncratic corporate company structure, the motion picture film division of Kodak is an entirely separate company from the one that sells consumer photographic film and all this despite the fact that all Kodak films are made in the same factory, by the same people in the same building. This internal disconnect has led to the availability of motion picture film while consumer photographic film is in often in short supply. Consequently many enterprising people and companies started buying motion picture film and loading it into 35mm cassettes, to be processed as ECN-2 film.

Cinestill found a way to remove the REM JET layer and sold this "converted" motion picture film as film that could be processed in the standard C41 color negative process. 

Why is Cinestill so upset now?

While for some time, Cinestill was the only company offering a JET layer free motion picture film, it appears that recently, several companies have figured out how to do this as well and began selling their own motion picture film with the JET layer removed. 

Its important to note that all of these, including Cinestill's film all start life as the same exact Kodak Vision 500T motion picture film. Kodak Vision 500T with the REM JET layer removed, is the same, regardless of which package it is sold in, but for some reason, Ciestill did not like the fact that others were selling Kodak Vision 500T film with no JET and decided to blanket threat legal action against various deales and resellers of competing products, in an attempt to block at least one of these companies, Reflx Labs which sells its own version of 35mm film derived from the same Kodak Vision 500T motion picture film, with the REM JET layer removed. 

We are no legal experts, but it seems that Cinestill dont really have a legal claim, but mostly wanted to flex a bit and use threats to assert their hegemony in this tiny niche market. What's more, it seems that Reflex Labs has no US representation and it would be prohibitively costly for Cinestill to try and take any legal action against Reflx directly, a company based in China (as frivolous as it might be) and instead decided to hurt Reflx by attacking and threatening many of their dealers and resellers, going as far as to say, as noted above, that any use of the terms "800T", "800 Tungsten" "T800" or any other variation of these terms to describe film is strictly forbidden as it infringes on their trademarks. In emails to us, they even went on to say that the word "Tungsten" itself is protected by their trademarks and may not be used in any way without infringing on their rights. 

Threats and intimidation, but only against those who are unlikely to fight back:

Cinestill claims we "used" their trademark "800T" and "800TUNGSTEN" (claimed but not registered anywhere) even though all we were doing was selling a product that used the number 800 and the letter T, to denote an 800 speed film balanced for Tungsten light. Either way, if they had a problem with the name of the product of a company, they should take it up with them directly, not by threatening a whole host of unrelated people, in some case threatening their livelihood and in our case, costing several thousands of dollars. 

Read the story of another person hit with this suite by Cinestill:

https://www.reddit.com/r/AnalogCommunity/comments/172brb4/what_exactly_can_be_trademarked_how_far_does_a/

At the moment, Reflx Labs films are carried mostly by smaller retailers, small business and your local "mom and pop" camera stores. Many of them received these threatening letters from Cinestill demanding Reflx Labs films be removed from the shelves along with threats about not disclosing the existence of the demand. Cinestill seems to not be taking any legal action against other very similar products, such as Amber's T800, jut another product which is the same Kodak Vision 500T motion picture film with the REM JET layer removed. Amber's film is available as of this day, under the name T800 (something Cinestill clearly noted would be infringing on their rights) and is carried by some of the biggest photo houses in the US such as BH and others. We can only assume Cinestill dare not threat a company the size of BH (or that BH simply told them to get lost as we did), and instead chose to concentrate only on small companies that would not have the breath and pocket to respond and defend against this bogus threat and intimidation. 

One has to wonder why is Cinestill so bent on destroying a small company trying to enter the market? Why are they so angry at the people who sell Cinestill's own products? Are they so worried the market is so small it would not accommodate more than one brand? Perhaps they are worried because of the price differential for essentially the same product, available from other companies? 

What can you do?

The film community has shown time and again that it is supportive, collaborative and welcoming. It opens doors and allows so many to experience the magic of film. This kind of shitty behavior should not be part of our wonderful film community and we hope the community will take a moment to say this loudly and clearly by supporting companies like Reflx film labs and others all around the world. You can speak with your money. When you choose which repackaged JETless Vision 500T you buy, your dollars talk for you. Spend them where it feels good and right. Support your local film retailers buy BUYING MORE FILM, tell them (directly, on IG, on FB, on REDDIT) that you are behind them and that they should not be intimidated by anyone for simply selling film to the people.