Filing of Lawsuit Against Daedong Industrial For Infringement of Combine Design Rights
December 13, 2011
Kubota Corporation (referred to hereinafter as "Kubota") filed a lawsuit against Daedong Industrial Co. Ltd. (referred to hereinafter as "Daedong Industrial") in the Seoul Central District Court on December 13, 2011 based on Kubota's Korean design rights (Nos. 500433 and 384494) seeking, among other things, injunction of manufacture and sales of five-row head-feeding combine DXM85G manufactured by Daedong Industrial, as well as recovery of damages.
Background
Kubota has been developing combines with reapers of novel design since the ARN series introduced into the Japanese market in 2005. With the ER series introduced into the Japanese market in 2008 (not yet sold in Korea) that succeeded the ARN series, Kubota invested even more time to develop combines of sophisticated designs that give a sense of unity as a whole while inheriting the novel designs of the reapers. These novel designs of Kubota have been registered as two design rights (Nos. 500433 and 384494) in the Korean Intellectual Property Office.
Based on our study of combines of Daedong Industrial that have been sold in the Korean market since 2010, Kubota determined that Daedong Industrial infringes Kubota's two Korean design rights and requested Daedong Industrial, in writing, to stop the manufacturing and sales of these combines. However, because Daedong Industrial rejected our requests, we determined that there was no other choice but to resolve the matter in the court and thus decided to file a lawsuit for infringement of the design rights.
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