Rotolight, British LED lighting manufacturer and inventors of the acclaimed NEO range of LED lights, has escalated legal proceedings against Vibesta B.V., part of the F&V Group. Rotolight has now served a writ of summons and seeks an interim injunction for design infringement and slavish imitation of its product. This comes after the court granted a pre-trial seizure against Vibesta B.V. which was served by bailiffs at Vibesta’s premises on September 10th prior to the IBC Show in Amsterdam.
Rotolight was initially made aware of Vibesta’s ‘Peragos Disk’ product line in May of this year by a number of retailers who expressed concern of its similarity to Rotolight’s NEO product range. In addition to the likely infringement of designs and trademarks present in the NEO LEDs, Vibesta B.V. have also used digitally altered versions of Rotolight’s product images in its own marketing campaign. The use of infringing imagery has since been discontinued after Rotolight’s UK lawyers sent a demand letter to the company.
Rotolight CEO Rod Aaron Gammons said: “Copying the design of our most successful product to produce a slavish imitation is unacceptable and must be stopped. We have made significant investments in research and development to deliver value for our users and so protecting our extensive portfolio of intellectual property (unless properly licensed) remains a high priority. We are confident that we will prevail in the upcoming legal proceedings. Until the judgement is rendered, we will refrain from making any further comments”.
The District Court in The Hague, the Netherlands, will hear the case on the 18th October and, if successful, the injunction would be enforceable throughout the European Union.
For more information please visit www.rotolight.com
