Barry Goodhead. Credit to Yellow Advertiser
UK men sentenced after caught producing and selling counterfeit cartridges.The Yellow Advertiser reports that two men have been arrested for producing and selling toner cartridges claimed to be original Brother and Ricoh products, but which in reality were used cartridges refilled and sold on by the men using false packaging.
Barry Goodhead, 39, and John Weston, 47 sold the cartridges through Goodhead’s business, Red Dog Comsumables Ltd. using packaging “unwittingly produced” by Watson’s company, Cumberland Packaging Ltd. for “almost three years”, generating “almost £2.5 million ($3.9 million/€3.1 million).
Although Watson was reportedly unaware that his company was producing unlawful packaging for Red Dog Consumables, it was stated in Basildon Crown Court that he “should have checked whether Goodhead had the right to use Brother and Ricoh’s trademarks before producing the packaging”.
Meanwhile, Goodhead’s defence lawyer Allan Compton said that it was out of “desperation” that his client had committed the crime as his original office supply company had “struggled to keep afloat” and had generated debts of £100,000 ($157,000/€127,000).
Compton argued: “although [Goodhead] knew what he was doing was wrong, it wasn’t as wrong as many other things,” and claimed that the cartridges were not poor quality: “He’s providing exactly the same thing [as the real company]. They are genuine cartridges, genuine ink and exactly the same packaging.”
However, Judge Lodge told Goodhead: “Companies are entitled to protect their products by trademarks. What you did was to short circuit things. You knew that you could get hold of old, empty products and fill them. You could have done that perfectly legitimately. You chose to make more money by selling them as legitimate products, which they were not. You did that over a lengthy period of time. People need to know they have their trademarks protected.”
Goodhead was sentenced to 20 months in prison, with an order for costs and compensation to be paid “at a later date”. Meanwhile, Watson was given a four month suspended sentence and his company fined £10,000 ($15,700/€12,700), with a further £10,317.61 ($16,215.11/€13,109.36) to be paid in costs.