G7th beats copycats

Capo specialist G7th managed to get copy-cat versions of its products being sold at Music China removed from the offending booth.

The firm says it was "shocked" to find a full page advert of blatantly copied products in the fold-out front cover of the Music China brochure. According to the firm the adverts had also been placed in several magazines and the company concerned, a manufacturer of low end guitars in China, had posters on its booth displaying copies of both the G7th Performance and Nashville capos.

It was also offering samples for sale on the booth. These were not direct counterfeit products as they did not display the G7th logo but they did infringe G7th patent rights protecting the design and mechanisms of the capos says the firm.

However, it was able to enforce G7th’s Chinese patents, and after a complaint to the patent agent from the Music China organisers and a refusal by the offending company to remove the posters, the patent agent then enforced a written notice to remove all posters from their booth (pictured) and stop selling the product.

Nick Campling, G7th inventor and company chairman said: “We have put an enormous amount of work into the design of our products and spent a great deal of time and money obtaining patents. There would be little point if we didn’t intend to protect them. We will use the full force of the law to do so. Unfortunately, this means that some distributors and importers of accessories will get stung either because of direct legal action by G7th to prevent the sale of infringing products or because we have shut down the supply from unscrupulous manufacturers or agents in Asia resulting in the loss of down payments paid.”

G7th has instructed its lawyers to pursue this and other more infringements.

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