Yokohama Initiates Patent Proceedings Against Hangzhou Zhongce

The fortunes of Hangzhou Zhongce in the US have received another blow. Only seven months after the beginning of the now notorious Foreign Tire Sales recall of the company’s Westlake, Compass and YKS branded tyres, the Chinese manufacturer is facing legal action regarding the tread pattern used on some of the tyres it produces.

On January 17 the Yokohama Rubber Company filed an intellectual property infringement complaint with the Miami office of the Florida Southern District Court. The document filed by Yokohama claims that Hangzhou Zhongce has copied the tread pattern design from its S.drive tyre range, a design patented in the US by Yokohama in November 2005. The alleged copycat tyres are marketed under the Sumo brand name, the private brand belonging to Singapore’s Stamford Tyres, and the models in question are the Sumo Firenza ST-08 and Sumo Akina ST-08.

According to the claim, the “tread design of the ST-08 tyre is confusingly similar, if not identical, to the S.drive” and defendant Hangzhou Zhongce’s infringement of Yokohama’s S.drive tread patent “has been and continues to be wilful and deliberate.” In addition to financial compensation for what Yokohama believes is damage to its business reputation, the Japanese manufacturer is seeking the distribution of a written acknowledgement of the infringement from Hangzhou Zhongce, along with the destruction of all promotional information, packaging, catalogues and other items displaying the patent infringing product.

In September 2006 Yokohama launched similar proceedings against Hangzhou Zhongce for another alleged patent infringement, claiming unauthorised use of the company’s Geolander A/T tread design.