Pontetorto and German partner ready to counter alleged Polartec legal action
09/07/2014
No formal confirmation of this has come from Polartec, but media in the US, starting with Women’s Wear Daily, have run details such as the European patent number the Massachusetts company believes Pontetorto has infringed.
Some reports even included quotes from Polartec chief executive, Gary Smith. While Mr Smith was careful to name no one, he was quoted as having made remarks more broadly about the impact on ongoing innovation of breaches of intellectual property rights.
On July 9, however, Pontetorto’s German sales agent, Christian Weichert Internationale Textilvertretungen GmbH, also named in the legal action, according to reports, did issue a formal statement. It said it and Pontetorto had become aware of the alleged infringement.
It said: “[We] recently became aware of press coverage according to which Polartec, [has] filed a patent infringement complaint against [us],alleging [we] had infringed and continued to infringe European Patent No. EP 1312 710 B1 with Polartec’s case being that the patent covered grid-back, knit construction textiles and was breached by the sale of Pontetorto’s Technostretch products.”
Weichert’s statement went on to say that neither it nor Pontetorto had, as yet, received no formal notification of action and that, if notification comes, the two European companies will “thoroughly review any allegations made and rigorously defend [our] rights”.
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