Ford counterfeit lawsuit overview:
- Who: Ford filed a lawsuit against three American companies, one Chinese company and several unknown individuals.
- Why: Ford, with evidence from law enforcement raids of the companies’ warehouses, claims the companies manufactured and sold counterfeit Ford-branded parts for at least two years.
- Where: The lawsuit was filed in California federal court.
Ford sued three American companies, one Chinese company and unknown individual affiliates of theirs for manufacturing, importing, marketing and selling thousands of counterfeit Ford-branded parts worth millions of dollars.
Ford names American companies Crov Inc., Sunward Logistics USA LLC and FD-All Together Automotive Inc.; Chinese company Qingdao Hairunkaiyuan Auto Parts Co., Ltd.; and affiliated individuals “Does 1 through 30” in the lawsuit, accusing them of trademark infringement, trademark counterfeiting and unfair competition. Ford says its trademarks have never been abandoned nor assigned or licensed to the alleged counterfeiters.
Ford claims the counterfeiting operations have resulted in consumer confusion and harm to Ford’s business and consumer goodwill.
Ford lawsuit claims counterfeiters caught with $2.5M of product
Ford first found out about the counterfeit operation at the SEMA-AAPEX parts trade show in Las Vegas in November 2019 where Crov circulated a sales catalog offering several counterfeit Ford grilles, according to the lawsuit.
A year later, “law enforcement effected a search warrant at Sunward’s New Jersey warehouse, leading to the seizure of nearly 4,000 counterfeit grilles, along with over 5,000 F and R letters that are used in the grilles to replicate or colorably imitate [Ford trademarks, and] 27 counterfeit spark/glow plugs, ignition coils, and emblems,” the Ford lawsuit states.
In May 2021, a law enforcement inspection found “nine additional counterfeit Ford Raptor grilles” at a Sunward California warehouse, and “over 580 counterfeit ‘Ford’-branded grilles and well over 1800 F and R letters” from a California warehouse owned by FD, the complaint adds.
“The above-referenced counterfeit products seized at these three facilities alone would be valued at approximately $2.5 million dollars if they were genuine Ford products,” the Ford lawsuit claims.
The lawsuit also claims that the companies “continue to advertise and offer for sale counterfeit ‘Ford’-branded products on their websites, highlighting the extreme willfulness of the unlawful and infringing conduct.”
Ford seeks an order to prevent the alleged counterfeiters from continuing their actions in question; actual, statutory, trebled, punitive, exemplary and/or enhanced damages; reasonable attorneys’ costs; and any additional injunctive, specific performance and/or other
provisional remedies
What do you think of Ford’s lawsuit regarding its trademarks? Share your thoughts in the comments below!
The plaintiff is represented by Zachary J. Alinder of Sideman & Bancroft LLP.
The Ford counterfeit lawsuit is Ford Motor Company v. Crov Inc., et al., Case No. 2:22-cv-05552, in the US District Court for the Central District of California.
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