Lighting specialist Oracle wins counterfeit lawsuit

A US manufacturer of LED lights for the automotive industry – Oracle Lighting – has won a legal battle against a Chinese firm it accuses of counterfeiting its products.

The win comes after the Chinese defendant appealed a lower court ruling that backed Oracle’s patent protection for its  Vector LED Grill System, which was introduced at a trade show in 2017. The company spotted knockoffs on the market shortly afterwards.

“After nearly a year of work designing and developing this product, it was honestly heart-breaking to find knockoff products pop up online,” says Justin Hartenstein, Oracle’s director of product development.

“I had seen this happen before to other manufacturers in our industry and decided that we were not going to stand for this blatant design theft.”

The judgment orders the Chinese defendant to immediately cease infringing Oracle’s patent, with an award of damages and costs. The court also rejected the defendant’s arguments that they had come up with the design for a particular grill design for the Jeep Wrangler, prior to Oracle filing its patent application.