Sensormatic Gets Serious Against Tag Company

June 12, 2007
Tyco division amends lawsuit, alleging trade secret violations and unfair trade practices

All is not sweet in the world of electronic article surveillance. Sensormatic, a division of Tyco, and one of the long-time leaders in the world of electronic article surveillance, is going after competitor Tag Company, alleging the firm not only breached its patent (as was alleged in a lawsuit filed in December 2006), but now alleging that the company has made trade secret violations and engage in unfair trade practices.

The amendment of the lawsuit follows what Sensormatic says were the actions of several former Sensormatic employees who have now gone to work with Tag Company. The lawsuit alleges that the employees used proprietary information about Sensormatic's UltraMax acoustomagnetic (AM) labels, which are used in loss prevention operations at retailers.

The EAS industry is no stranger to lawsuits. In February, a jury with a U.S. district court handed down a judgement ruling that Sensormatic had not infringed upon a patent held by competitor Checkpoint Systems. That lawsuit also involved Sensormatic's supplier All Tag.