Yekalon To Defend Itself Against Unilin Charges

Hong Kong, China, Sept. 29, 2009--Chinese building materials provider Yekalon Industry says it will take legal action "at any cost" to defend its locking technology for laminate and wood floorings.

The private company, based in the southern boom city of Shenzhen adjacent to Hong Kong, was charged by its much stronger competitor Unilin with patent infringement at a world fair in Germany in January.

"We have hired top-notch lawyers in Germany and will appear at the court of Hamburg on Wednesday," said Wilson He Yixin, chairman of Yekalon.

The focus of the case lies in a glueless locking technology for laminate and wood floorings. Unilin has owned patents since 1996 for the method and dominates the market with another European company, Valinge.

However, the Chinese company says it invented a new locking method in 2005 that can connect the flooring by vertically tapping in the edges of the planks instead of the established technique of angling and snapping horizontally, according to He.

It is the second big clash between Yekalon and Unilin.

In July 2006, 18 Chinese flooring exporters, including Yekalon, were put under a Section 337 investigation by the U.S. International Trade Commission (USITC) for patent infringement by Unilin and its subsidiaries.

Yekalon was the only company in the group that was not condemned by the investigation because the USITC found that its locking technology did not infringe the patent claims asserted.