After a two-year battle Camtex Fabrics Limited, the manufacturer of Cambrelle®, the world’s leading breathable, moisture-absorbing footwear lining, has won a landmark decision in the Zhejiang Province Rui-an City People’s Court against a Chinese company that infringed their intellectual property rights.
The Court found that the defendant, Wenzhou Superteng, had infringed Article 57 of the trademark law of the People’s Republic of China. The Court had previously confiscated 6.2 tons of imitation piqué fabric along with an embossing roll that had enabled the company to copy the trademarked design.
Wenzhou Superteng appealed the original judgement passed on December 1st 2015, an appeal which failed. Wenzhou Superteng have been fined a six-figure sum of money.
Camtex Fabrics managing director, Kieran O’Hare, decided to press charges against Wenzhou Superteng having caught the company brazenly selling material it claimed was Cambrelle® at the INDEX exhibition in Geneva in 2014. Not only was the Chinese company exhibiting the imitation fabric on its stand, it also had the Cambrelle® logo on posters and business cards.
Tracking them to the Cinte Techtextil China, in September 2014, Mr O’Hare again saw Wenzhou Superteng representatives openly promoting and claiming to sell Cambrelle®. On this occasion and with the assistance of a local law firm he was able to have the product removed from the stand and to initiate a legal case against the defendant in China.
Mr O’Hare said that the result was only made possible with the help of their joint-venture partner Cosmo in Hong Kong who pursued the offenders. Securing the help of local legal experts and investigators, has been crucial in this victory over the counterfeiters. “You can’t do this from afar,” he said. “You need to be on the ground to gather evidence and to convince the authorities to investigate and verify for themselves what is going on.”
Josh VanDernoot, president of Cosmo said: “The decision to take the case to court shows our customers that we are willing to protect this valuable trademark in China so that they can be confident that when buying Cambrelle® through official suppliers, they know they are getting the real thing.”