The Court of Appeal in Valencia found the importer guilty of importing over 26,000 counterfeit ink and toner cartridges into the Port of Valencia.
World Trademark Review (subscription required) reported on the decision, which was made in early May, by Section 2 of the Valencia Court of Appeal, which found the Indian citizen responsible for the shipment “guilty of an IP offence for importing a shipment containing 26,545 printer ink and toner cartridges bearing the brand of a prestigious multinational company into Spain”.
The cartridges, the site notes, were “empty, genuine branded cartridges” that had been refilled and repackaged to be sold “as if they were original products” – counterfeit consumables – and it added that the judgement “is particularly important in light of [this] increasingly frequent phenomenon in the digital printing field”. The shipment came in through the Port of Valencia via a company “that the defendant had incorporated in Spain”.
The site also noted that the decision “has put an end to such practice by declaring that the fact that the brand of the cartridges is identified on the boxes”, as well as the fact that the cartridges, which the site erroneously calls “recycled cartridges – or cartridges which imitate the branded product”, in its words “are used to create the appearance of the original product” – a demonstration that the defendant “sought to mislead consumers into believing that this was in fact a branded product”.
The Court of Appeal added in its judgement that the products “need only look acceptable” to be passed off as the real thing, and that in terms of the quality of the ink and toner used to refill the cartridges, it believes “it does not matter whether these have been analysed, or whether the quality of the products has been compared, given that this category of offence does not lay down any requirements as to whether the imitation must possess certain qualities compared to the original product[.]
“[R]ather, it is sufficient that the imitation has been manufactured without the trademark holder’s consent, and that it ‘reproduces, modifies or otherwise uses an identical or confusingly similar distinctive sign’”. The defendant has been sentenced to 15 months imprisonment, is “disqualified from the right to stand for public office for the duration of the sentence”, must pay a fine over 18 months of €20 ($26) a day, and also pay the “civil liability and legal costs”.