Aug 23, 2016 10:44 AM PDT    Text size: 

BIELEFELD, Germany — The company that sells the Satisfyer said that is has been forced into a "marketing patent suit" in Germany by a competitor over its hallmark vibrator.

Jerome Bensimon, Satisfyer’s vice president of sales, in a statement said that there “is simply no patent infringement”; instead, he called Womanizer’s legal claim a shakedown based on old technology used in previous generations of its device and that there is “no danger” for retailers.

“We [are not worried] about the case,” Bensimon said. “The allegation of patent infringement is completely unfounded and does not even meet the latest generations of our devices. Even the Satisfyer Pro 2 has been updated recently. We accept any liability for our devices and do not hide.

“From our point of view, the sole purpose of the legal action is to unsettle the market. A lawsuit in that matter is hopeless. There is simply no patent infringement."

Bensimon noted that the claim filed by Womanizer relates solely to a previous version of the current Satisfyer Pro 2 and solely to the German market.

“The alleged infringement cannot be brought to court in any other country besides Germany,” he said. “There is simply no Womanizer patent that allows any action outside of Germany.

“Furthermore, the action does not relate to the currently shipped version of the Satisfyer Pro 2, but to a previous version that has been updated recently. The old version is no longer produced.”

Bensimon went on to say that some of the line’s models, like the Satisfyer 1, Satisfyer 2, Satisfyer Pro Penguin, Satisfyer Pro Deluxe and Satisfyer Pro 2, have been developed by the company’s own product designers “and are therefore based on our own technology.”

“We differentiate ourselves from the patent asserted by Womanizer,” Bensimon said. “Other than required by the patent, the attacked devices do not work with two chambers, but with just a single one. Womanizer has already contacted us some time ago because of an older Satisfyer model and claimed a patent infringement.

However, that case was resolved in an out-of-court settlement, Bensimon said, and the company has further amended and improved its product design since the legal signoff.

“The mechanism now complained by Womanizer is irrelevant to the function of the device and has been eliminated with the latest product update" said Jörg Budde, Satisfyer’s technical director.

Bensimon, who called Womanizer’s lawsuit “totally unnecessary,” said that the legal action in Germany was made supposedly to trigger uncertainty among wholesalers and retailers.