If It Walks Like a Duck . . .
As legal battles go, this one is pretty fowl.
A federal judge in San Francisco recently ruled that Sharper Image Corp.--an upscale retailer and catalogue operation known for its unusual doo-dads--did not infringe on a patent held by Sunnyvale-based Nobell Inc. when it sold the Quacky IV Fone.
The Quacky IV Fone is a telephone that looks like a mallard duck decoy, and it quacks and moves its beak instead of ringing. Nobell’s feathers were ruffled because it holds a patent on a toy that moves or makes sounds or flashes lights when a telephone rings.
“The patent covers any personalized telephone signaling device,” said Irving M. Weiner, Nobell’s lawyer.
U.S. District Judge D. Lowell Jensen disagreed, saying that Nobell’s device was separate from the telephone, while the quacking and beak-moving were an integral part of the Quacky IV Fone’s operation. Nobell is appealing the ruling. Sharper Image no longer sells the Quacky IV Fone.
Still pending is a section of the suit concerning the Fido Phone. Nobell contends that San Francisco-based Pacific Orient Trading Co. violated its patent by once importing a telephone that--what else?--barks.
Sniffing Out Counterfeiters
In recent months, Giorgio Beverly Hills has had as much success sleuthing as it has selling its renowned perfumes, Giorgio and Red.
The sleuthing is not part of a new detective-services subsidiary at Georgio. It is aimed at protecting Giorgio’s core business--fragrances--from counterfeiters.
Late last week the company reported the bust of a major counterfeiting ring in London. It said Al Vetter, its director of security, coordinated the two-year-long investigation that resulted in the arrest of the gang’s four key leaders.
Vetter, who was assisted by Jean Louis Faure, director of security for Paris-based clothing and perfume giant YSL, said a total of 27 arrests was made. Four fragrance-filling factories, four storage buildings and 20 residences were raided, and more than 220,000 pieces of perfume-dispensing gadgetry were confiscated. The counterfeit items--Giorgio, Opium, Chanel and Obsession--were targeted for shipment to the United States, Australia, and Nigeria.
In the past seven months, Giorgio said, it and YSL have played key roles in a worldwide crackdown on perfume counterfeiting. In November, they cracked what is believed to be the final Singapore link in a global fake-fragrance syndicate. In September, they stopped the largest Singapore counterfeiter, seizing an estimated $1.8 million worth of bogus perfume. And in June, they raided three counterfeit perfume operations in Taiwan and Singapore.
Giorgio said the two companies’ security departments have also been the industry leaders in uncovering bogus scents in California and New York.
