AV Magazine recently published an exceptionally interesting article about a case L-Acoustics one against someone trafficking in counterfeit parts. The company was ordered to pay $5 million in damages and penalties to L-Acoustics. I want to share a few notes on why this is so important in our industry. In tech-based industry, R&D is how we advance. But R&D is expensive. I'm sure many of us can share stories of customers taken aback by prices in the "Professional" side of the AV industry. Why is this speaker so expensive compared to what I can get on Amazon??? The details, the precision, the beauty and quality of the sound--and the research that went into creating it.

Patents allow companies like L-Acoustics to protect the competitive advantages developed in their new products. It allows them to charge higher prices for features (or at least versions of features) that only they provide. At its best, the patent system incentivizes research while also keeping the door open to competition.

Counterfeiters break this system. They hurt brands, they stop research, and they even break trust in our industry when end users buy "name brands" that don't live up to the right standard because they're fake. It's good news not just for L-Acoustics but for the whole industry to see counterfeiters punished and consumer trust in the quality of professional AV defended.