Swedish court rules for criminal conviction in SKF counterfeit court case

A Swedish court has sentenced one person to a one-year jail term and a five-year ban from trade, as well as awarded damages to SKF, after finding the man guilty of violation of Swedish trademark law in relation to the SKF trademark.

According to a release from SKF, the court found that he intentionally purchased counterfeit SKF products. The products were thereafter sold with a high profit margin to unknowing customers.

The criminal and civil court case was the result of a police raid in March 2010 of stores in Stockholm and Avesta (located in the central parts of Sweden) where the police found thousands of counterfeit SKF products. SKF cooperated with the police in identifying the counterfeit bearings.

Counterfeit SKF products are non-SKF products illegally marked with the SKF trademark and packed in SKF-like packaging.