Defending intellectual property rights

Glaston is continuing to defend its intellectual property rights against Northglass, the company announced recently.

In 2012, Glaston initiated a process against Shanghai Northglass Technology and Industry and its distributor in Germany for patent violations relating to one of Glaston’s bending and tempering technologies. Based on a Glaston patent from 1995, a first instance judgement in Glaston’s favour was passed in Germany in January 2017. 

Glaston holds patents for all its key solutions and has been successful in defending its intellectual property rights. In addition to the pending process in Germany, patent infringement decisions against Northglass favouring Glaston have been issued in the UK in 2006 and in Canada in 2010.

The Federal Court in Canada gave its decision in 2014 on the damages and ordered Northglass to pay Glaston 1.3 million euros. The damages and the accrued interest since 2014 remain unpaid. To step up the process, Glaston initiated a legal process to enforce the positive judgement of the Canadian legal proceedings for damage compensation in Germany. The court gave a judgement in Glaston’s favour in late 2017 but the process is still incomplete, as an application for permission to appeal has been made to a higher court. 

In the meantime, Glaston applied to the court for seizure of payment between Northglass and its client, which was granted in Glaston’s favour. Therefore, Glaston may now advance on its measures aiming to the actual seizure of payment, and the company is considering other options for securing the compensation.

Glaston representative Sasu Koivumäki said: “As the technology leader of our industry we will continue to protect our intellectual property rights globally. Unfortunately, as court decisions haven’t been respected by Northglass, indirect parties such as glass processors were affected by the process. We have tried to minimise the harm but at the same time want to point out that we are defending our assets and rights.”