Gillette targets online store selling copied shaving products
Gillette has sued a US-based online store for selling copies of its Mach, Fusion and Venus ranges of razor-blade cartridges and other products.
The case was filed yesterday (August 27) at the US District Court for the Southern District of Ohio, Western Division, against North Carolina-based Rocusa International, which operates the GiftKoncepts store.
The store offers “generic” versions of branded products, listing items with names such as “Generic Sonicare Brush heads” and “Generic ORAL B replacement heads”.
In the complaint, Gillette said that the items sold by Rocusa “intentionally imitate and directly copy the valuable unique and distinctive ornamental and non-functional design” of its best-selling shaving and other products, and accused the company of wilfully infringing its design patent rights and utility patent rights.
Gillette, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Procter & Gamble, holds seven valid patents directed to the design of the products at issue, and one utility patent.
It claimed that Rocusa has infringed its patents directly, and induced infringement by supplying the products for sale on other websites.
Gillette has established “tremendous goodwill” as well as proprietary design rights in the design of its lines of razor-blade cartridges, it said, adding that Rocusa bases a “substantial component of its business on direct copies of and near exact imitations of Gillette’s products”.
In its complaint, Gillette claimed that Rocusa has profited from its infringement, and that it has suffered pecuniary damage. It asked for a preliminary and permanent injunction to stop Rocusa infringing the patents, and an accounting to damages related to the violations.
According to The Boston Globe, Gillette’s Mach3 razor, introduced in 1998, cost more than $750 million to develop. It was the world’s first triple-blade razor.
