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Local Firm Does Battle With Chinese Counterfeiters

Congresswoman Louise Slaughter and Navitar CEO Julian Goldstein
Randy Gorbman
/
WXXI News
Congresswoman Louise Slaughter and Navitar CEO Julian Goldstein

A Rochester area company says it was able to get the upper hand against Chinese counterfeiters recently, helping to preserve the future of that company.

Navitar, which makes optical equipment, says that a few years ago it discovered there were companies in China claiming to be using its products. But officials with the Henrietta company say those products were actually knock-offs, made illegally by Chinese companies.

They turned to Congresswoman Louise Slaughter for help, and the Fairport Democrat says she put Navitar in touch with federal agencies that helped them.

"Chinese companies have seemingly done everything they can to gain an unfair advantage over their competition in many cases and most often with their government's support. The theft of intellectual property by China has been estimated to cost the United States hundreds of billions of dollars each year," Slaughter told a gathering at Navitar on Wednesday.

The CEO of the Henrietta firm, Julian Goldstein, says they have been able to get the Chinese courts to stop the counterfeiters.

"We basically went after them in very creative ways and we went to use the courts, so we got the courts to go after them for false advertising, we got their own people to go after them for failure to pay income taxes and failure to pay duty and VAT (value-added tax) which was smuggling,” Goldstein said.

Navitar  has 65 employee and says its exports to China have doubled this year.

Randy Gorbman is WXXI's director of news and public affairs. Randy manages the day-to-day operations of WXXI News on radio, television, and online.