UK manufacturer swift to act over machine copies on show at Bauma.
While other exhibitors and visitors were enjoying the sunshine, sausages and schnapps that give Bauma its distinctice flavour (and smell) JCB was in court, applying for court orders in Germany resulting in preliminary injunctions being served against manufacturers who were exhibiting the infringing machines at the Munich show. As a result of the action, the machines were removed from the show and impounded or concealed from view.
Tim Burnhope, JCB’s Group Managing Director of Product Development and Commercial Operations, said: “JCB will not tolerate blatant copying of its machines or infringement of internationally-recognised patents and in every instance will act quickly and decisively to stamp out such unfair practices.
“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. ”
The action in Germany concerned infringement of JCB’s intellectual property rights on its backhoe loader and Loadall machines.
We were hoping to run a competition to identify the manufacturer of the offending machine hidden beneath the tarpaulin in our photo but (a) JCB aren’t saying, and (b) we figure the offending manufacturer now has some understanding of German law courts and may just sue us.
So instead, we are offering a 100% genuine, JCB-approved, 1:25 scale JCB 8016 mini excavator model with three attachments for whoever comes up with the most amusing caption for the photo above. Please just hit “Comments” below and let us have your suggestions.
