DAHON redoubles efforts to protect its business interest and consumer rights
Duarte, California, August, 2013 – DAHON, the world leader in folding bicycles, continues to address the increasingly excessive illegal application of its intellectual property in China. This includes both the selling of counterfeit DAHON-branded bikes as well as folding bicycles that infringe on DAHON registered patents. As one of the first western brands to enter the Chinese bicycle market, the company has become a target for coun¬ter¬feit¬ing and piracy.
DAHON is taking advantage of an improving legal framework in China to protect both local and foreign intellectual property. Recent actions by the Chinese courts have confiscated counterfeit merchandise and fined retailers in the districts of Qingdao City and Hangzhou City for breaching DAHON‘s trademark. Civil lawsuits by DAHON will follow for damages in both these cases.
Many imitation frames and other accessories have been illegally offered across numerous bike and Internet stores and have become increasingly popular with many Do-It-Yourself consumers. The DAHON brand is furthermore frequently used in mis-lead¬ing com¬mer¬cial prac¬tices by thousands of Internet stores to attract consumers. Taobao, an online shopping site with over 370 million registered users in China and a deal volume of over 160 billion USD in 2012, is reacting more favorably to IPR complaints but such illicit activities continue to resurface faster than ever.
A final court judgment in favor of DAHON was furthermore announced last month against Wal-Mart Shenzhen Stores, Inc., a joint venture of Wal-Mart China and a Shenzhen-based corporation, for intellectual property violations. The store was unknowingly infringing upon DAHON‘s IPR by selling branded bicycles that were in actuality not designed or manufactured by DAHON.
Dr. David T. Hon, CEO and founder of DAHON comments, “Many of our patents are so widely copied that some merchants commit mistakes inadvertently. However, as an industry leader, we owe it to our partners to protect the integrity of our brand and to ensure the safety of our consumers. This is a battle that we have been fighting for a long time and we are pleased to see that things seem to be moving in the right direction.”
DAHON is the leading brand for folding bicycles with sales of over 480,000 units last year through more than 1,200 authorized independent bicycle dealers in China alone. The company offers a wide range of complete folding bikes and accessories.
In 2011 the company introduced an authenticating hologram program to protect against counterfeits. Every authentic DAHON bicycle comes with a serialized 3D holographic label that can be validated on DAHON‘s online authentication system at www.dahon.com.