Cyberhome busted over counterfeit trademarks on DVD PLAYERS!

[budz]

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/06/13/MNG5RJDKKS4.DTL



(06-13) 15:40 PDT FREMONT - A multi-agency task force has executed a search warrant on the country's largest importer of DVD recorders and players, confiscating eight tractor-trailer loads of recorders allegedly bearing counterfeit trademarks.

James Sibley, a Santa Clara County deputy district attorney, said the warrant was served June 8 on Fremont-based Cyberhome USA, a U.S. affiliate of Cyberhome Taiwan. Sibley said the value of the 20,000 units exceeds $2 million.

Sibley said agents from the REACT task force, an anti-counterfeiting strike team composed of agents from five California counties and the state and federal governments, served the warrant. No arrests have been made, Sibley said, but a criminal investigation is ongoing.

Representatives of Cyberhome could not be reached for comment.

Cyberhome had a leasing agreement with Philips Co. to manufacturer relatively low-end recorders and players, Sibley said.

"Cyberhome ran up a $22 million bill with Philips, which they didn't pay," Sibley said. "So Philips pulled their license. The problem is that Cyberhome kept manufacturing and selling recorders and players under the Philips trademark."

The products weren't inferior, Sibley said -- essentially, they were the same as the recorders and players sold under the licensing agreement. But they were not authorized by Philips -- and Philips wasn't getting paid.

"This is about trademark infringement, not product quality," Sibley said. Sibley said Cyberhome USA was importing the unauthorized DVD equipment "by the shipping container load" from Taiwan.

Sibley said that trademark infringement is a mushrooming problem for American business, with China and Taiwan accounting for most of the violations.

"We anticipate it will get even worse as the manufacturing base in those countries expands," he said.

Sony was once the largest exporter of DVD equipment to the United States, but Cyberhome stripped them of that position last year, Sibley said.

"Now Sony may be number one again," he said.

[dvdguy4]

Well that sucks.

[BJ_M]

i think it really will not effect them much .......

[MOVIEGEEK]

[CubDukat]

Personally, I think they're fried. Now that this has happened, the only ones to even think of stocking Cyberhome will probably be Wal-Mart, and maybe not even them.

Didn't Apex or one of the other cheapo DVD player manufacturers have a similar problem?

[FulciLives]

Such a shame ... I still have a Cyberhome CH-DVD 500 and back in the day (and for some time afterwards) it had the absolute best PAL to NTSC conversion you could buy ... and it only cost like $70 at BEST BUY ... PLUS ... it could be hacked to be region free and you can even disable macrovision.

Sure it has a few issues (only outputs 0.0 IRE BLACK ... has a slight red push to the image ... progressive scan can be "iffy" at times) but overall it was an excellent product for it's time. I sytill use mine for PAL playback on a NTSC TV.

But now Cyberhome sucks BIG time.

Oh well ...

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[budz]

I got a Cyberhome HDMI upconverter dvd player and now I wonder if it's just a rebadged Philips HDMI dvd player. None the less the unit cost me only $83.00 which included the HDMI cable and it could be made region free via a hack. It has some quarks but I really don't mind since the HDMI cable was included & I can use it to playback my region 3 movies.

[lacywest]

When Walmart started selling the Cyberhome DVD Recorder in my home town ... I bought one and kept the reciept.

I recorded Smallville on it ... and paused the unit during commercials. When I checked out the results ... I had the commercials but not Smallville ... I returned it within 48 hours.

I bought the Panasonic E50 from Walmart through the Internet ... and another one from Ebay ... since then I've bought ... a Pioneer 220 .... and in last 9 months ... I've bought 4 Panasonics EH50 [100 GB hard drive] units ... they work fine for me.

My living room TV is a Sony 51" HD TV and the image is just fine.

http://www.abtelectronics.com/product/16795.html