Nine persons connected with piece goods and printing business in Shanghai were brought before the First Special District Court yesterday on the suspicion that they had been involved in a fraud in which they were alleged to have caused the Defag Company, Szechuen Road to lose a big sum of money through infringement of its "Indanthren" trade mark.
Counsel for the plaintiffs told the court that although the loss could not be estimated at present it must have run into six figures, although the initial loss was estimated to be 875.000. It was revealed by the police prosecutor that as early as March the German firm received information that piece goods were being distributed in North China with imitation Indanthren labels.
Later, further information was received from clients in the interior to the effect that seals on the trade mark were forged and these forged documents were found in Wuhu. The company even took the trouble of sending representatives to the interior to investigate the matter and finally found out that the trade mark infringement business had its origin in Shanghai.
The Settlement police were quickly informed and as a result of raids conducted in various places the accused were arrested. Some of the accused are salesmen of piece-goods stores.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.