Top 10 bedding producer Kingsdown Inc. recently served a U.S. District Court complaint against King Koil/Comfort Solutions alleging numerous violations of its patents, trademarks and unfair business practices relating to the development and marketing of its sleep diagnostic system. The five-count complaint asks the court to grant immediate injunctive relief and seeks significant damages for violations to date.
At the center of the lawsuit is King Koil’s Sleep iD’s diagnostic system, which Kingsdown maintains violates a 2003 patent it was granted by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. Kingsdown said that Sleep iD follows the same process as its bedMATCH™ technology, which is covered under the patent it received.
Additionally, Kingsdown said the defendant is in violation of many of its 16 registered trademarks the government granted the company beginning in 1990, that use the terms BODY and MATCH.
The lawsuit names two former Kingsdown executives privy to the proprietary information who left the company and shortly thereafter were hired by King Koil/Comfort Solutions. Within two days of Kingsdown’s launch of its bedMATCH™ technology at a press conference in New York, King Koil filed to use the trademark BEDMATCH, claiming in its application that “no other person, firm, corporation or association has the right to use the mark in commerce,” when indeed it had been widely publicized to the contrary.
“Our bedMATCH™ technology has revolutionized the way bedding is sold because we were the first to use science to help a consumer find the right mattress and pillow for their body type. It is the culmination of more than 15 years of research and development for which we have spent millions of dollars. More than 6 million consumers have used the system to date, which combines 18 statistical measurements with over 1,000 calculations leading to product recommendations. Hence, we will defend the rights granted to us by the government,” said Kingsdown Chairman and CEO Eric Hinshaw.
“By violating our patent and trademark rights, King Koil is really seeking to damage the committed retailers who carry the Kingsdown brand and the consumers who have come to rely on the science and efficacy of bedMATCH™ technology to get a better and more restorative night’s sleep. This action should assure our dealers that we will vigorously defend their right to use our unique system without fear of others trying to copy our intellectual property,” Hinshaw added.
Kingsdown, Inc. founded in 1904 and headquartered in Mebane, North Carolina, USA is a manufacturer of premium mattress systems serving leading retailers across the United States and in more than 20 countries. Each product is manufactured using handcrafted techniques combined with state‐of‐the‐art research, materials and equipment. Research and development, training and distribution facilities, as well as two manufacturing facilities, are also headquartered in Mebane. International offices are located in Bangkok, Thailand, and Tokyo, Japan. Additional manufacturing and distribution centers are located in Winchester, VA; Muskogee, OK; Lakeland, FL; Knoxville, TN; Stockton, CA; Toronto, Calgary, and Vancouver, Canada; Derby, United Kingdom; Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia; Istanbul, Turkey; Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth, Australia. For more information, visit www.kingsdown.com.