Can you stop China from copying patented packaging machinery?

June 16, 2008

Interpack has often had its intellectual property intrigue and this year is no different. Ishida, the statistical scale company, obtained injunctions against nine Chinese entities that prevented them from displaying their statistical scales at the fair. The dispute involves a patent related to the waterproof construction of the equipment. In a press release that I read in Ishida's booth, three Chinese companies had been named, Highdream, Jinyi and Saimo, but an Ishida representative indicated that some of these companies changed booth numbers after the show opened and transferred their equipment to companies under different names. These tactics resulted in the addition of six more entities to the list of those who received legal notices.

The Chinese that I spoke with expressed that they were being singled out from among European and Middle Eastern companies who might also be infringing an Ishida patent. The Chinese believed that this was because their equipment was one-third the price. Ishida confirmed to me that they were going after those companies that they perceived as the greatest threat. This threat was portrayed not only as the commercial threat to Ishida and established competitors but also a potential threat to packagers who may be duped into buying cheaper equipment with higher total cost of ownership and a potential threat to consumers who might buy products that are packaged on equipment that does not deliver declared weight.

This is just one of many more examples to follow where the world will find its intellectual property laws and practices to be wanting. It is one thing to try to maintain patent protection on a single continent of a few hundred million people. But to accomplish this across an increasingly industrialized world of 6.7 billion people will require new paradygms and may be impossible. Being first to market with flawless execution is a strategy that may offer better protection than can be provided by the law.

The Chinese affected at Interpack have hired attorneys and expected to be in German court yesterday. Ishida was to e-mail me their latest press release. As of this writing, I don't have word on either, but maybe some readers have an update on how this all turned out.

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the most interesting part of all this is the fact that probably ishida learned how to protect themselves from this threat from TNA :
http://www.foodproductiondaily.com/news/ng.asp?id=53358-ishida-loses-patent

you reap what you sow.

Posted by: max on May 5, 2008

There is far more to packaging machinery than just the sale price. Unless Chinese companies can offer service and support that can match that of U.S. machinery builders (and European and Japanese for that matter), I can't imagine too many A-list packagers--already extremely risk averse as it is--will gamble on a Chinese packaging machine.

Posted by: Sam on June 16, 2008

The price we pay for a global economy is intellectual integration, which includes copy cat engineering. The problem we have in the USA has to do with too many lawyers and dwindling scientific minds. Wait until you see what happens over the next 25 years.

Posted by: Stan Walulek on June 16, 2008

I don't think we can completely stop the intellectual and or design theft by China or anyone else outside our own country. The problem lies much deeper, which we do not have control of: short sightedness of those purchasing agents that buy on price alone. You get what you pay for. The current "worldview" thought process forces us to settle for less. The Chinese as well as others see this, and take full advantage of it.

Posted by: Marvin Combs on June 16, 2008

Intellectual property in today's world is almost impossible to protect if you are not a giant world-wide corporation. You are only as good as your last idea.
People have a strange idea of new technology and what to protect. For thousands of years man has been thinking and our ideas today are not new. They were thought of already, only then they did not have the toys and materials we have today to convert the idea into a functional reality. Remember "high tech" products and our comforts we have today were built on the bodies of those that forged before us. To assume you made the difference is pride and folly. I used ideas in 1985 in machines, that people think is novel today, but I borrowed those ideas from other sources. The best is to sell the idea quickly or make the product fast, competitively and of high quality to capture and hold market share. To hold patents to protect your high price, poor service and poor quality is a recipe for disaster or to hold patents to stiffle or control developments or lack of developments of needed solutions is criminal.

Posted by: Paul Zepf on June 17, 2008

I totally agree with this.
We bought some motors(wash down) that's made in china.
and these motors got water into it next couple of months and dead. These are cheap! but short life time. I dont know much about patent thing but Im not going to buy made in china. because lack of quality. Its cost more.

Posted by: Yoji on June 18, 2008

Totaly Agree With Yogi.This was quite entertaining, thank you.
To all those who find it offensive, just don?t read it. Quit trying to censor everything you don?t find personally agreeable.
It?s a big internet out there.

Posted by: paper machines on June 29, 2008

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Can you stop China from copying patented packaging machinery?

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