Wipro Consumer Care & Lighting Business, the FMCG, furniture and lighting arm of $5 billion software major Wipro Limited has dragged Featherlite Office Systems, a Bangalore-based office furniture maker, to court for infringement of their registered design.
In a complaint filed in the court of City Civil & Sessions Judge, Bangalore, Wipro has alleged that Featherlite has copied the registered design of their product ‘cut out caps’, for commercial exploit. After perusing the records and evidences submitted by Wipro, the court, in its interim order, has prohibited Featherlite from manufacturing andôor selling ‘cut out caps’ till further order.
‘Cut out caps’ is a wire management system used in some of Wipro’s range of furniture. The company has already filed a patent for this design in India.
Parag Kulkarni, VP, Furniture & Lighting business of Wipro said, “We invest substantial resources in creating new and unique products for our clients. We have tied up with designers of international repute and have employed latest and most sophisticated machineries to deliver world class products for our customers.
It is painful to see competition adopting unfair means to ride on our hard work.”
Wipro’s furniture business has recently launched ‘India’s first leg and beam based modular office furniture system “I’M”. The company said that the product has been well-accepted in the market with leading architects and designers advocating it for use of the product in their new projects.
For the fiscal 2008-09, Wipro’s Consumer Care and Lighting Business’ revenue increased by 37 per cent to Rs 2,083 crore.
The furniture business contributes about 8 per cent of Wipro’s Consumer Care and Lighting Business’ overall revenue.
