Wow! Stuff stands up against counterfeiters

June 7, 2012 - PRLog -- The company, whose remote-controlled, helium filled toys became a hit in the UK after featuring on The Jonathan Ross Show, has taken the unusual step of starting legal proceedings against 16 companies, including a number of household names, both here and in the European Union.  These proceeding were started after initial approaches for an amicable resolution were refused or ignored.

Further legal proceedings are also being prepared and will be issued shortly in courts across Europe if the company’s initial approaches in these territories are met with a similar response.

Lawyers acting for Wolverhampton-based Wow! Stuff, the product’s official European distributor, have also issued warning letters to more than 500 distributors, retailers and manufacturers in the UK, the EU and the Far East, most of whom quickly recognised that they were in the wrong and opted to end any dispute by simply withdrawing their counterfeit products from sale.

Sellers range from market traders to website-based businesses, high street toy shops and department stores.

Last December Groupon UK, the deals website, withdrew two offers for counterfeit Air Swimmers toys with a retail value of around £500,000 after receiving notification it was infringing Wow! Stuff’s intellectual property rights. Given the large values involved Wow! Stuff’s legal team is now in dialogue with the company seeking compensation.

More than 500,000 units of the Air Swimmers toy have been sold worldwide since its launch in January last year by William Mark Corporation Inc. (WMC), an American based corporation.

The toys received more than 6 million views on YouTube – some 2.1m were recorded within five days of its debut - and its viral success appears to have been a contributing factor in encouraging infringers to steal the concept and reproduce it in time for last year’s lucrative Christmas market.

Wow! Stuff, which manufactures merchandising for Doctor Who, Science Museum, Animal Planet and Mensa, is the official manufacturer and distributor of the product in Europe and globally with the toy giant Toys R Us, under an exclusive license from WMC.

Wow! Stuff, one of the 100 fastest growing SME's in the UK, founded by Richard North, a serial entrepreneur and Scottish businessmen Graeme Taylor and Kenny McAndrew, spent more than £220,000 on television advertising to promote the Air Swimmers products in the UK in 2011.

With a further TV campaign planned to support new models due for launch later this year, the company said it felt that it had been forced down this avenue in order to protect its interests and those of its legitimate retailers.

It has hired Lincoln IP, a Scottish-based firm of patent attorneys, and Cardiff-based solicitors Geldards LLP, to help protect the intellectual property in its Air Swimmers products and to halt the global counterfeiting.

Lincoln IP has already secured two UK patents, a European Community trade mark and multiple registered European Community designs for these products, and is continuing to prosecute a number of other applications throughout Europe.

“There has been a huge number of infringing products flooding the European market. Most of the fake products are coming from China. Some of them are sold under an alternative brand but the products look and function in the same way as the legitimate versions,” says David Fulton of Lincoln IP.

Richard Moore, litigation partner at Geldards LLP, said: “The number of infringers that we were dealing with from November 2011 onwards in the UK, the EU and the Far East was quite astounding.

“However, we have made very significant inroads into the number of infringers that are operating in the marketplace during the course of the last six months and we will continue to do so.  The market has got the message that Wow! Stuff has intellectual property rights in the Air Swimmers toys and, when left with no other option, will enforce those rights vigorously.”

Richard North, CEO, of Wow! Stuff, said: "The original inventors at WMC created an amazing product which we have spent a lot of money developing and protecting.

“Court proceedings are certainly not how we would wish to spend our time or our money.  However, when we saw the blatant disregard of our investment in this product range and the safety risks posed by these cheap, poor quality counterfeit goods we felt that we had to make a stand.

“We will be publicising the names of everyone our lawyers prosecute and a percentage from compensation awarded by the courts will be donated to charity."


Notes to Editors:



•Got to http://www.lincoln-ip.com
•Owned and managed by two co-directors, Lincoln IP provides services that offer legal protection to unique products, designs and trademarks owned by clients.
•A government review is underway into how the UK's intellectual property framework can further promote entrepreneurialism, economic growth and social and commercial innovation.
•It will examine the available evidence as to how far the IP framework currently promotes these objectives, drawing on US and European as well as UK experience.