Nikon Sues Sakar For Design Patent Infringement Of Its Nikon 1

Nikon Corporation, with its principal place of business located in Tokyo, Japan, as well as Nikon Inc., having its main place of business located in New York, USA, have collectively come together to file a lawsuit with the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York against Sakar International, Inc.. The charge against Sakar? For allegedly performing an infringement of the design patent as well as trade dress right owned by Nikon. Nikon is looking for an injunctive relief against Sakar in the lawsuit so that the latter will no longer be able to manufacture and sell their Polaroid brand digital still camera that is known as the “Polaroid iM1836”.

We did talk about the Polaroid iM1836 earlier on in the year, where it was touted to be a digital camera which was powered by the Android mobile operating system, making it an early leader in such a department. Nikon claims that the Polaroid iM1836 has infringed upon their Nikon 1’s design, and they are not too happy with it. Nikon also claimed to have “negotiated with Sakar to amicably solve this problem”, but they were unable to arrive at an agreement. Hence, the necessity of a lawsuit (and some lawyers getting a nice payday from this, too).

Do you think that the Nikon 1 is the base design for the Polaroid iM1836, or is Nikon throwing a baseless accusation from the layperson’s point of view? [Press Release]

Edwin Kee
Categories: Gadgets
Tags: Legal, Nikon, polaroid