JCB last week took tough action against three “far Eastern” manufacturers for product copying and patent infringements, the company said.

JCB successfully applied for court orders in Germany resulting in preliminary injunctions being served against manufacturers who were exhibiting the “infringing machines” at the Bauma international construction equipment show in Munich. As a result, the machines had to be either removed from the show and impounded or concealed from view.

“JCB will not tolerate blatant copying of its machines or infringement of internationally recognized patents and in every instance will act quickly and decisively to stamp out such unfair practices,” said Tim Burnhope, JCB’s group managing director of product development and commercial operations. “JCB invests many years and many millions of pounds developing and innovating new products and it’s clearly unfair for any manufacturer to then simply free-ride on the results of that investment and research. As an industry we all have to unite to prevent such unlawful practices.”

The action in Germany concerned infringement of JCB’s intellectual property rights on its backhoe loader and Loadall machines by three separate manufacturers, the company said.