DuPont Protection Technologies (DuPont) announced Monday it settled two cases involving fake DuPont protective clothing for the oil and gas industry in Southeast Asia and Central Europe.
Safety Depot of Indonesia admitted to having sold counterfeit products through their Safety Depot outlets that infringed on DuPont trademarks, including DuPont Nomex protective apparel.
Under the settlement signed on June 1, 2015, Safety Depot was forced to cease all use of the DuPont brands, remove all labelling from existing inventory, and issue a public apology, which has been completed.
“The infringement of the company’s trademark and mislabelling of protective apparel have jeopardised the safety of industrial workers in the regions, the company said in a statement,” DuPont said in a statement.
“The successful settlement of these cases should serve as warning to those companies who abuse the law and misrepresent products they market,” said Marc Doyle, president of DuPont Protection Technologies.
“We will aggressively pursue cases of trademark infringement to ensure that no one is harmed by counterfeit protective apparel that does not meet important standards for safety.”
In a separate case brought against a manufacturer of protective apparel in Slovakia, garments sold to the oil and gas industry marked with a “NOME” label and claiming to be composed of 93% Nomex fibre were tested and discovered to contain none of the special material.
The settlement, signed on March 20, 2015, included an order for DeLUX and ASTONA to cease and refrain from using their NOME mark due to the confusing similarity to the DuPont Nomex brand.
The companies committed to cease all infringing use of DuPont’s brand, and remove and destroy all misleading labels. Financial terms of the settlements were not disclosed.
