Court Finds ‘The Tag Company’ Infringed Sensormatic® Patents

ADT ADT Security, the leading provider of Sensormatic® Electronic Article Surveillance (EAS) solutions, has announced a victory in a major lawsuit against a competing company that was found liable for patent infringement, misappropriating trade secrets and employing unfair trade practices.

The lawsuit involved ADT’s industry-leading Sensormatic® anti-theft solutions which help protect more than 80 percent of the world’s top 200 retailers from shoplifting and internal theft.

In its decision, the U.S. District Court, Southern District of Florida immediately prohibited ‘The Tag Company’ from making or selling any of its products in the U.S. that were produced using confidential information about patent-protected Sensormatic® products. This includes ‘The Tag Company’s’ Series 58 acousto-magnetic label. The ruling also prohibits ‘The Tag Company’ from distributing the Series 58 label from the U.S. to anywhere else in the world.

“We are pleased with the court ruling and the confidence it should give customers that they can continue to rely on the integrity and high performance of our Sensormatic® anti-theft solutions,” said Scott Clements, vice president and general manager of Sensormatic® Retail Solutions. “Protecting our intellectual property is central to our ability to continue investing in and innovating solutions that help retailers deter theft and improve profitability.”

In the suit, a federal court found that several former Sensormatic® employees, who helped design, develop and market Sensormatic® EAS systems had misappropriated and improperly used important proprietary information about those products to benefit ‘The Tag Company’.

The court also ordered ‘The Tag Company’ to pay damages and ruled that one of its consultants, a former Sensormatic engineer who previously helped develop Sensormatic® technology, violated his prior employment agreement by misusing confidential information. The court ordered the man to pay costs and attorney’s fees.

A recent survey conducted by the U.S. Retail Industry Leaders Association (RILA) found that 84 percent of national chain stores reported an increase in shoplifting since the beginning of the recession. With more than 1,500 patents, Sensormatic® systems are engineered for superior performance to help retailers protect profits while reducing shoplifting and internal theft.

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