IBM is suing a company that is allegedly selling unsafe counterfeit laptop batteries.

In court papers filed last week in the US District Court for the Northern District of Ohio, IBM says that Shentech.com is “offering counterfeit IBM products which pose a substantial threat to the safety of the consuming public,” Information Week writes.

The discovery of the alleged counterfeits happened after a consumer in Ohio bought a battery from Shentech for a Thinkpad laptop. The battery caught fire and damaged the laptop. After conducting an examination on the faulty battery, IBM learned that it was not a genuine battery.

IBM says it subsequently bought 12 Thinkpad batteries from Shentect for further analysis. All batteries were found to be fakes, the company said.

IBM is asking an order from the court that would prohibit Shentech from claiming any products it sells are made by IBM and from destroying any evidence related to the case.

In addition, the company also asks for an order for Shentech to turn over all of the fake batteries to IBM to be destroyed.

IBM is seeking for unspecified, “treble” damages or US$1 million per counterfeit mark per type of item sold.

In 2006, IBM and Lenovo (which bought IBM’s PC business) announced a joint recall of more than 160,000 Thinkpad batteries due to fire hazard.

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Entry was posted on Thursday, November 29th, 2007 at 12:30 am under Legal.  Print This Post

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