On November 5, 2009, Yekalon won a major patent litigation against a transnational flooring company - Unilin - in a German Court. The Court sided with Yekalon and withdrew the preliminary injunction that was imposed earlier this year at the request of Unilin in an ex parte proceeding. This is the second decisive victory over Unilin's harassments after the 2005 win before the US ITC in a 337 investigation.
Unilin's patents on laminate flooring technologies are approaching their expiry dates and Unilin acted in a notoriously aggressive way to litigate their patents with other flooring manufacturers across the world. This business strategy is no longer credible especially when new and superb technologies, like Yekalon's, emerge on the market. The more Unilin litigated with Yekalon, the more customers sided with Yekalon.
Moreover, Yekalon has to express its deep concern on the unfair "convenience" for a company to use the "preliminary injunction" as a cheap tool to harass its competitors in German trade shows. In such proceedings, no meaningful defense opportunity is provided to the companies, against which infringements are simply alleged by assertions. Preliminary injunctions can be imposed when no argument or evidence is litigated and even when no meaningful notification is provided. The companies that spend a half year to carefully prepare for presenting their adorable products to
German customers are expelled from their booths simply because their competitors secretly bring into some unknown courts a couple of unsubstantiated infringement claims. This will significant diminish the value of these trade shows to serious and credible players.
