Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, June 22, 1993 TAG: 9306220077
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: B6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Knight-Ridder/Tribune
DATELINE: MIAMI LENGTH: Medium
Yet, few people noticed until a peddler of the counterfeits approached an authorized IBM distributor in Paraguay who blew the whistle.
After a sting operation, IBM and a former subsidiary, Lexmark International of Lexington, Ky., quietly busted a ring of counterfeiters and their sales staff in Miami with the help of a federal judge and the U.S. Marshals Service.
Six people signed consent decrees promising never to do it again and to cooperate with the company in any future investigations.
It was the third time in the last two years that IBM and its distributors had swung into action to knock out counterfeiters in South Florida. Their chief weapon: civil lawsuits in federal court aimed at enforcing IBM's trademark rights.
"Most of the firms are pretty small," Charles Kratzer, attorney for Lexmark, said Friday. "But when you take care of one, there are others that seem to pop up in other places."
Lexmark, a now independent division, manufactures and markets IBM equipment and supplies under agreements with the White Plains, N.Y., computer company. Lexmark, averaging $2 billion in revenues a year, concedes that counterfeiters don't make much of a financial dent.
But Kratzer said the companies employ legions of lawyers and outside investigators to track down the fakers anyway. The reason: to preserve their reputations.
"If the end user believes it has genuine product and the product has a defect, it is attributed to IBM and Lexmark," he said.
While the ribbons rounded up in Miami this month were not defective, they were of low quality, Kratzer said.
Bronis said all of the defendants entered into agreements to stop selling counterfeit ribbon cartridges under the IBM label.
by CNB