If you saw a recent statement from Penn Engineering and Manufacturing (“PEM”) about its years-long legal campaign against us, you might be wondering what’s going on. We feel the same way. So we thought we’d set the record straight.
After almost six years of litigation in federal court, we actually defeated PEM’s efforts to prevent PENCOM from engaging in lawful activities in marketing and selling our fastener products in competition with PEM. PEM claimed that our use of cross-reference charts, product performance data, keyword conquesting, a website search tool, and the resale of genuine PEM’s products violated federal and state laws. The federal court rejected many of these claims as a matter of law and, following a one-week trial, a federal jury rejected the remainder.
PEM also did not mention that it dismissed several of its claims on the eve of trial, including a claim involving its square-in-square floating fastener design, once we challenged the validity of PEM’s trademark protection of that design. Nor did PEM reveal that the jury rejected its claim that dozens of it’s supposed “common law marks” (product source identifiers) were legally valid and enforceable.
Further, PEM did not tell you that its claim that we used its trademark in Google ads was based on mistakes that our vendors made (and the vendors testified that this is true) that caused the letters “Pem” to appear for limited periods of time. We pulled the ads as soon as we learned about them.
PEM was unsuccessful in its efforts to beat PENCOM into submission through litigation. The bullying did not work and will not work. We make reliable products that you have used for decades. We will not stop making those products, and we will not stop making sure that you know that PENCOM products are here for you.
