Five Major Educational Publishers are Seeking Damages for Alleged Counterfeiting Operations.
On August 13, 2021, McGraw Hill LLC; Bedford, Freeman & Worth Publishing Group, LLC d/b/a Macmillan Learning; Cengage Learning, Inc.; Elsevier Inc.; and Pearson Education, Inc. (collectively, the “Publishers”) filed a lawsuit against Radius International, Inc. (“Radius”), "a global logistics provider." The Publishers claim that Radius was involved in “large-scale importation and distribution of [its] counterfeit textbooks in the United States.”
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In the Complaint, the Publishers assert that Radius “had in its possession over 19,500 counterfeits of Plaintiffs’ textbooks.” Radius allegedly “took possession of the counterfeits shipped to it from abroad” and “intentionally altered [the] counterfeits to make the new counterfeit books look used.” The Publishers purport that this "is a method employed by counterfeiters to sell books at prices lower than new legitimate books in the hopes that such illegal sales go undetected by publishers and others in the legitimate chain of commerce.”
Furthermore, Radius is alleged to have “maintained the inventory of the counterfeits, and . . . controlled the packing, shipping, and delivery of the counterfeits.” The Publishers also assert that Radius “had knowledge that the textbooks it distributed . . . were not legitimate textbooks.”
The Publishers allege that Radius' actions are violations of the Publishers' copyright and trademark rights, and are seeking, among other things, an injunction and monetary damages.
We will continue to follow this case and report on any significant updates.