Andre Yoskowitz
1 Sep 2008 18:23
An extraordinary event occurred today at the IFA event in Berlin when German customs police raided and seized flat-screen televisions from the booth of Hyundai IT Corp.
On Thursday a German court ruled that Hyundai and other Asia-based companies were using and marketing unlicensed patented technology at the annual event. The court then authorized 69 raids.
"Hyundai had the chance today to show us that it had paid for the licenses -- then we would have gone. But that was not the case. They could not prove they had paid so we took the devices away," said spokesman Norbert Scheidhauer of Berlin's customs investigation office.
The raid occurred during the event in front of visitors and the booth was left with nothing but wires and cables hanging.
Scheidhauer would not name the other companies that are to be raided but did say that 170 televisions, 140 MP3 music players, 21 mobile phones and 57 DVD recorders had already been seized since the IFA event began on August 29th.
"This year is the biggest operation that customs investigators have had to carry out," he added.
Hyundai has not commented on the raid yet but Scheidhauer added that they could challenge the seizures in a German court.