The lawsuit involved acousto-magnetic (AM) labels manufactured by ZhenTai, located in Jingjiang City, Fujian Province. ZhenTai offered its labels for sale both in China and for export abroad. In its decision, the Quanzhou Intermediate People's Court enjoined ZhenTai from making, using or selling its infringing labels. Furthermore, ZhenTai was ordered to destroy any equipment, molds and drawings used to produce these labels and to pay nominal damages to Sensormatic.

This is the second court ruling in a year against a company infringing Sensormatic anti-theft label patents. In December 2008, a U.S. court found The Tag Company liable for patent infringement, misappropriating trade secrets and unfair trade practices.

Over the last 40 years, Sensormatic has invested substantial resources toward advancing its Electronic Article Surveillance (EAS) solutions, which are designed and manufactured to deliver industry-leading performance at a competitive price, accordingt to Sensormatic. Any AM labels not similarly designed may risk impacting the performance of Sensormatic Ultra•Max- based EAS systems. Examples are failures to alarm as well as failures to deactivate and false alarms, which can lead to customer service issues. If such labels are used in source tagging programs, poor performance may undermine confidence in source tagging and AM labels in general.

"We are pleased with the court ruling and the confidence it should give customers that they can continue to rely on the integrity and high performance of ADT's Sensormatic anti-theft solutions," said Scott Clements, president, Sensormatic Retail Solutions. "We are committed to protecting the source tagging supply chain and retailer's investment in our solutions."

ADT helps manufacturers tag more than four billion items each year, with over 30 billion products source-tagged with Sensormatic labels since the inception of the program.