ACID (Anti Copying in Design) members Luminati Waycon trade under the name of Luminati, a recognised brand in the supply of engineered display solutions, supplying a vast range of display products. Like most companies in the 21st century, their website is one of their key means of marketing, being the main showcase of their products. Recently they have found many competitors copying the distinct look and text of their website which has proved to be an important selling tool. One of the key product ranges marketed through Luminati’s website is its acrylic photo frames. The company had found that the website advertising of this product had been highly successful. Luminati recently discovered that one of their competitors had copied the literary text and layout of the webpage advertising the company’s acrylic photo frames. A letter before action was sent by ACID Accredited law firm McDaniel & Co. alleging copyright infringement. Following receipt of this letter the company concerned spoke with Luminati and agreed to remedy the infringement and pay Luminati’s legal costs.
Dids Macdonald, ACID’s CEO said, “Increasingly ACID members are finding that sending a strong letter before action can achieve the right results. Taking legal action does not mean going all the way to Court and in this instance Luminati is sending a clear message not only to the sector but to this particular competitor that they are not going to tolerate any IP infringement now or in the future.”
Luminati’s Managing Director, Steve Senior said, “In this particular sector most of the key players know one another and there is no room for those who seek the fast track to market by producing look alike web pages appearing to trade off our brand identity. The way in which this was discovered was a fantastic new free service called Copyscape. By entering our own web text a result came back which confirmed that the majority of the text had been slavishly copied. Luminati’s case was further compounded by a time stamped snapshot taken of their website by hosting company ICO3 who keep permanent incremental backups of their clients websites over several years. Our brand protection policy takes priority and we will always be assertive in pursuing any intellectual property infringement.” www.copyscape.com
