No peeking under the tarps

Tuesday, June 8, 2010

Farm and construction machinery manufacturer J C Bamford Excavators Ltd. of Britain takes patent infringement seriously.

Charging that three "Far Eastern" companies at the BAUMA international construction show in Munich in April were displaying pirated knockoffs of its "world leading" backhoe loader and Loadall machines,  JCB successfully applied for a preliminary injunction, forcing the machines to be either removed from the show, or concealed from view.

"JCB will not tolerate blatant copying of its machines or infringement of internationally-recognized patents and in every instance will act quickly and decisively to stamp out such unfair practices," said Tim Burnhope, JCB's Group Managing Director of Product Development and Commercial Operations, in a widely distributed press release.

"JCB invests many years and many millions of pounds developing and innovating new products and it's clearly unfair for any manufacturer to then simply free-ride on the results of that investment and research. As an industry, we all have to unite to prevent such unlawful practices." BF