Biz Buzz

Looks like toilet seat manufacturing Bemis isn’t going to take crap from a Canadian company it is suing for patent infringement and false advertising.

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel said Wisconsin-based Bemis Manufacturing Co. is suing Centoco Plastic Ltd. for the descriptions of a couple of models of its cheap wood and plastic seats.

Here’s some of it:

Centoco, Bemis alleges in a suit filed recently in federal court, has claimed in its advertising “that Centoco toilet seats were superior or equal to Bemis toilet seats.”
Bemis says the Canadian firm hasn’t backed that up, and that, in fact, Centoco’s seats are inferior to Bemis products.
Further, Bemis alleges, Centoco claims that the 700 and 900 — the former is round, the latter elongated — are made of molded wood when they actually “contain only 5 percent to 20 percent wood.”
All this has “deceived a substantial segment of consumers and potential customers,” Bemis alleges.
Beyond that, Bemis claims Centoco has infringed on a Bemis patent relating to an injection molding process.
In its complaint, Bemis includes what it says is “a representative sample of Centoco’s misleading advertising.”

The ad, however, doesn’t say Centoco seats are better than Bemis seats, or mention the company. The only claim to superiority is a headline that reads, “Our wood seats are highly durable and superior for high-traffic locations.”