Weber-Stephen Enters Into Settlement Agreement With Sears Holdings Corp


 
Chris Allingham

Chris Allingham

Administrator
Staff member
I wonder what aspect of Kenmore grills allegedly infringed on Weber's Genesis IP?

--

PALATINE, Ill., Feb. 8, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Weber-Stephen Products LLC and Sears Holdings Corporation announced today that they have entered into a settlement agreement that resolves litigation that was pending in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois regarding certain intellectual property rights of Weber-Stephen Products involving the Weber Genesis line of products.

Sears will transition its sales of the Kenmore Elite products accused of infringement in the lawsuit to redesigned versions of the Kenmore Elite products, so that after a one-year transition period, sales of those Kenmore Elite products will be discontinued and replaced with the redesigned versions.

The terms of the settlement agreement are confidential.

SOURCE: Weber-Stephen Products LLC
 
Trade dress are the colours: "canary yellow", "robin's egg blue" etc. Apparently the colour has to have acquired a secondary meaning for it to be allowed a patent.
 
Some agreement, Sears is losing money so fast and with very few prime locations left they can sell and closing K marts by the bucket full I doubt they will be in business in a year.
When I worked there in Lawn & Garden part time six years ago after retiring the store was pulling in 50-60K a day and weekends close to 100K. We were told the previous days sales at every morning meeting. Now they are lucky to break 10K a day, some days as low as 3K.
Know all about the Weber deal we had them on the floor but never in stock so we were trained to do the bait and switch to a Kenmore, which we were to tell the customer was as good as a Weber and much cheaper.
 
The company took a $3 billion dollar loss in fiscal year 2012, and is expected to lose considerable amounts at least through fiscal 2016. The main reason the Company has been able to survive over the past few years was due to sales of real estate and other assets. Massive store closures, especially at Kmart, and tighter inventory controls have also helped. Sears lacks the one thing it truly needs to bounce back — a viable plan to reverse seven consecutive years of declining same-store sales.
 
I've been told that Sears is still using accounting and inventory methods that date back to the 1980s. Their stores look about the same as they did 40 years ago. Honestly, it appears they have no desire to reinvent themselves.
 
I'm in the battery business. After lunch, if I have time, I'll wander into a nearby business to look around and possibly buy something. Whenever I go into one of the few Kmarts left, I look at the Die Hard batteries they have for sale. Some of those puppies are 3-4 years old! It'd make a nice door stop, but not much more!
When they carried our batteries, Exide, we were required to keep the stock fresh and write credits for the out dated stuff!
Sad to see a couple of American commerce legends go down like this!
 
Rusty James said:
I've been told that Sears is still using accounting and inventory methods that date back to the 1980s. Their stores look about the same as they did 40 years ago. Honestly, it appears they have no desire to reinvent themselves.
Click to expand...

You're right Rusty when I first got there around 2001 there were still some of the older registers that booted up with a C prompt. We were told that if the register said we had an item in the store warehouse to go ahead and sell the item and have the customer go to customer pick up to receive their item. About 30% of the time it wasn't in stock = ticked off customer.
I got in the habit of doing a visual check in the warehouse to make sure we had the item.
Reason for that problem, inventory updated every 24-48 hours not real time.
 
For a short time when I was pretty young, early 50's, we lived in the country with an outhouse.
We loved their catalogs! :rolleyes:

I can't even remember the last time I was in a Sears or a K-mart store.

MjAxNC00YzIyMzVhMjdlMGNkOTk0_52f654e509500.png
 
Last edited:
Have not seen Weber grills in our local Sears stores for at least 3 years or more now. About the only reason I have to go to Sears at all now
would be to have a Craftsman tool replaced once in a while. Most of my original set is from 1980. Can't say that about anything else that they sell.
Sometimes the mighty fall real hard.........
 
I used to buy everything from Sears from appliances to laundry soap. Die-hard batteries/boots, Craftsman tools, water heaters and softeners.
You used to be able to buy a whole house from Sears back in the day.
And now the tower is called Willis.
I echo what Bob H said...

Tim
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

 

Back
Top