Canon U.S.A., Inc. and its parent company, Canon Inc. of Japan, announced that the companies have won a lawsuit involving the unauthorised and infringing use of the Canon trademarks and the illegal sale of counterfeit “Canon” merchandise against two defendants in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.
Judge C. Darnell Jones II entered a Final Consent Judgment on 12 December 2019 prohibiting the defendants from infringing and counterfeiting Canon’s trademarks. As part of the resolution, the defendants also paid a significant amount of money to Canon for their unlawful activities, the OEM stated.
The legal action against Joey Fang and Kyung “Kay” Kwak resulted from Canon’s investigation into the defendants’ distribution of counterfeit Canon camera batteries on eBay, and is part of Canon’s ongoing efforts to protect Canon consumers’ health and safety from counterfeit products.
The complaint, which was filed on 16 October 2019, alleged that defendants’ unfair competition and misuse of the Canon trademarks to mislead the public as to the source and authenticity of the Canon trademarks could put Canon consumers’ safety at risk and damage Canon’s business and reputation.
The Canon companies were represented by Mark Schonfeld of Burns & Levinson LLP of Boston, MA and Teri M. Sherman of Klehr Harrison Harvey Branzburg LLP of Philadelphia, PA.
Canon says it aggressively pursues counterfeiters in the United States and around the world to protect its customers from spurious and potentially unsafe products which unlawfully use the Canon name, as well as to protect the value, trusted reputation and loyalty that the Canon brand has acquired over decades in producing high-quality, safe and reliable products.
