Electronics company Philips has filed a trademark infringement case against an individual who set up a string of online outlets to sell allegedly counterfeit goods. Filed at the US District Court for the District of Utah, Northern Division, on May 5, Philips's suit claimed that its ‘Sonicare’ trademark had been wilfully infringed. Sonicare is a brand of electric toothbrush made by Philips. The trademark was first registered in the US in 1994, before Sonicare was launched a year later. Matthew Preece is alleged to have set up four online outlets across the state, as well as the UK and Belize, to sell counterfeit ‘Sonicare’ goods using the “confusingly similar ‘Sonishare’ trademark”. Preece is alleged to have sold replacement toothbrush heads that were advertised for use with Philips’s Sonicare products.

Source: WIPR