Genuine Innovations Suing Todson, Zefal

TUSCON, AZ (BRAIN)—Genuine Innovations has sued Todson and Zefal claiming that a Zefal CO2 inflator infringes on one of Genuine Innovations’ patents.

Genuine Innovations filed suit in U.S. District Court in Arizona on Friday.

Zefal CO2 inflators are sold worldwide under the name “EZ Plus.” Todson manufacturers the EZ Plus in Taiwan and imports and distributes EZ Plus in the United States, according to court documents.

The 388 patent issued January 18, 2005 was the invention of Genuine Innovations co-founder Tony Hollars. The patent covers a compressed gas cartridge dispensing system that is capable of handling both threaded and unthreaded CO2 cartridges of various capacities.

“We have offered our manufacturing services to Todson in the past and were in negotiation with Zefal in 2007 to license our inflator technology, so one can imagine our surprise and disappointment to find this item for sale in Wal-Mart,” said Marty Mares, chief executive officer of Genuine Innovations. “This is especially unbelievable considering that during October 2007 Zefal corresponded with Tony Hollars of Genuine Innovations via email that they had knowledge of patent 6843388 and were developing a product that was in violation. As part of the email exchange that occurred over the course of several days, Tony proposed that Zefal pay a royalty. Zefal responded that they did not want to pay the royalty, so we assumed the project would be dropped. Instead it appears that Zefal moved it forward.”

Todson president Neal Todrys couldn’t comment on the lawsuit at press time.

Genuine Innovations is seeking unspecified damages from Todson and Zefal and has demanded that they stop manufacturing and selling the product.