Association of the German Home Textiles Industry with success against big food retail chain

Wuppertal, 12.02.2008 - In January the table cloth and table runners offered by a big food retail chain turned out to be Chinese copies of a design created and protected according to the design protection law by Messrs. Alfred Apelt GmbH, Oberkirch. Already at Heimtextil 2006 Messrs. Apelt presented this article, the unique design of which now was copied nearly one-to-one. Apelt immediately informed the Association of the German Home Textiles Industry (VDHI) on this infringement of their property rights. Via Trust Company Ltd (the service provider of VDHI) a cease and desist order against the food retail chain was made by VDHI. This action was successful because only some days after bringing these articles into circulation they had to be withdrawn from sale. In the next step the damage caused to Messrs. Apelt will be claimed against the supplier of the food retail chain.

“This case shows that also a medium-sized company with an efficient and competent partner such as VDHI is able to enforce protection rights against a retail giant”, said Martin Auerbach, legal adviser at the Association of the German Home Textiles Industry.