Unilin was recently awarded a $1.17 million judgment in compensation for the patent infringement of Granada Kitchen & Floor, LLC, Granada Wood & Cabinets, Inc. and NSL Trading Corporation’s past imports and sales of approximately 600,000 m2 of glueless laminate flooring products that infringed on Unilin patents.
This final judgment brings to a close the patent infringement action that Unilin launched in March 2014 against several California-based companies involved in the import of patent-infringing flooring products and the individuals behind the companies.
“The protection of our intellectual property rights in North America is one of our priorities,” said Bart Van der Stockt, managing director of Flooring Industries, a Unilin/Mohawk division specializing in intellectual property. “We remain vigilant and are already undertaking several new actions against other infringers in the U.S. and Canada in order to ensure a fair marketplace.”
According to Van der Stockt, these court actions complement Unilin’s ongoing, active cooperation with the United States Customs border protection offices, where containers with infringing flooring products are regularly being examined and denied entry into the United States pursuant to the General Exclusion Order issued by the U.S. International Trade Commission in 2006 to prevent products infringing Unilin’s clic patents from entering the United States.
In 2012, Unilin introduced the holographic L2C Label Program requiring licensees from certain countries to attach a unique holographic label to each box of licensed product, which makes it easy to identify licensed products. Unilin’s Intellectual Property Unit also recorded its L2C trademark with the U.S. Customs and Border Protection Service, which is actively monitoring and seizing infringing products.