The raid was prompted by an emergency motion for injunctive relief filed by California-based Future Motion, which makes a similar board that balances over a single wheel, imaginatively called the One Wheel.
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Attendees at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas on Thursday were treated to a more dramatic sight than the usual parade of gadgets and hired models showcasing products, when US Marshals marched onto the show floor to seize allegedly contraband hoverboards.
The device, a one-wheeled self-balancing skateboard called the Trotter, is made by Changzhou First International Trade, and the marshals confiscated it and every piece of promotional material at the booth.
Future Motion believes CZ-First’s product, the “Surfing Electric Scooter”, blatantly and deliberately copies the look and function of Future Motion’s Onewheel® product, thereby infringing two of Future Motion’s issued US patents. “Future Motion welcomes fair competition, but companies that simply mimic Onewheel® without the same technical know-how and safety assurances pose a threat not just to Future Motion, but to consumers and the industry at large”, said Kyle Doerksen, CEO, Inventor and Chief Engineer, Future Motion.
Changzhou now lists its device for $550 (£375) on the Alibaba shopping site, which is about a third of the price of the Onewheel.
Bloomberg Business’s Josh Brustein was there and tells us what happened. “We went through the formal USA legal process to get a temporary restraining order against one of these companies that’s trying to sell a knock-off product in the States for the first time”.
He added that Future Motion had patents pending elsewhere including in China, which it hoped to obtain in order to stop Changzhou manufacturing the device.
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“As a company that launched ourselves at CES two years ago, we know that the world is watching”. The CTA and a woman present at the booth declined to comment.
