Product and brand piracyStarting signal for 'Plagiarius' competition 2020
Once again this year, entrepreneurs, designers and inventors have the opportunity to submit their original products and alleged imitations to the 'Plagiarius' competition and nominate the plagiarist as the winner of the negative prize.
The 'Croma Select S Multi' hand shower from Hansgrohe in Schiltach was counterfeited by two companies from Zhejiang, China: the Cixi City Changhe Ainuohua Sanitary Ware Factory and the Cixi City Changhe Yihao Sanitary Factory. Both counterfeiters infringe Hansgrohe's design rights in China. One of the two counterfeits even uses "hansgrohe" in Chinese characters, for which trademark rights exist. The counterfeit in the middle is offered via the WeChat chat service. The copies cost the equivalent of around 0.85 / 0.89 euros and are correspondingly inferior in terms of material and product quality.