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Dear customers, partners, and colleagues in the industry,
Recently, our company noticed that VMI Holland BV published information through its official account stating that it has filed three patent infringement lawsuits with Zhengzhou Intermediate People’s Court against our company and our customer, Henan Tianji Tyre Co., Ltd, alleging that LAPC series tire building machines produced and sold by our company infringe three patents owned by VMI in China. The dissemination of this information may have a certain impact on our company’s commercial reputation and the confidence of our customers. In order to clarify the facts and prevent misleading information from affecting the market, our company hereby makes the following statement regarding the relevant circumstances:
I. Without verifying the specific technical solutions of our products, and without conducting a rigorous comparison between the technical features of the patents involved and the specific technical solutions of our products, VMI Holland BV directly initiated patent infringement litigation against our company. Such conduct is clearly inappropriate and failed to fulfill the obligation of due diligence.
Intellectual property litigation is a common legal channel for market entities to safeguard their legitimate rights and interests. However, before a court renders an effective judgment, the relevant allegations should not be regarded as established facts. Nevertheless, after filing the lawsuits, VMI immediately made inaccurate and exaggerated publicity to some of our customers, intending to interfere with our normal business operations and commercial reputation. As a tire equipment enterprise that has always adhered to the path of independent innovation, our company attaches great importance to this matter and will actively respond in accordance with the law. At present, the case has entered judicial proceedings. Our company will respect and actively cooperate with the court in its trial proceedings and firmly believes that the law will deliver a fair judgment.
II. After rigorous comparison and analysis, our products do not fall within the scope of patent protection and do not constitute patent infringement
In response to VMI’s allegations, our company attaches great importance to the matter and immediately organized a dedicated team composed of technical experts and senior intellectual property legal advisors to conduct a detailed technical comparison and analysis between the three patents involved and the technical solutions of our LAPC series tire building machines. For the three patents in question, our products contain clear distinguishing features, and therefore do not fall within the protection scope of the patents involved and do not constitute infringement:
1. CN201410624213.1 – A Tread Component Feeding System. The core technical feature of this patent lies in that three feeding templates - No. 1 belt layer feeding template, the tread feeding template, and No. 2 belt layer feeding template - are arranged sequentially in the horizontal direction. In contrast, Link-Asia’s product adopts a configuration in which No. 1 belt layer feeding template and the tread feeding template are arranged in anoverlapping layout in the horizontal direction. The structure and movement path are completely different, and therefore do not fall within the protection scope of the patent. This patent was obtained by SAFE-RUN in the form of trade secret litigation initiated by VMI. In fact, however, VMI Holland BV had already publicly sold the MAXX product corresponding to the patent before the patent application date of SAFE-RUN (November 6, 2014), and had clearly disclosed the claim limitations of the involved patent on publicly accessible websites. As a result, the patent stability suffers from significant defects, and the related litigation lacks a legitimate basis of rights.
2. CN200980114161.0 – Apparatus for Manufacturing Tires. The inventive point of this patent lies in the development of a semi-drum mounting ring and/or connector mounting ring for a building drum. When the semi-drum is removed from the drum shaft, it is only necessary to disconnect the connection between the semi-drum and the mounting ring, without the need to separately disconnect or reconnect air pipes. This constitutes a quick-change structure for a building drum that eliminates the need to remove air pipes. In contrast, Link-Asia’s building drums still adopt the traditional method of plugging and unplugging air pipes, which entirely belongs to prior art. There are substantial differences between our company’s product and the patented solution, and our product does not fall within the protection scope of the patent. Moreover, no technical comparison analysis were provided in the materials submitted by VMI Holland BV in this case. In fact, prior to filing the lawsuits, it had not obtained the specific technical solutions of our building drums, so the litigation lacks substantive factual basis for infringement.
3. CN200880006690.4 – Cutting Device. This patent protects a cutting device for cutting rubber components. However, our tire building machinesare not equipped with the core inventive point described in the claims oftheinvolvedpatent, namely the pressing roller mechanism. Meanwhile, they do not possess the core technical feature specified in the patent claims, namely that “the pressing roller extends along less than half the width of the said roller conveyor” in terms of size and structural characteristics. Therefore, there are substantial differences between our company’s product and the patented solution, and our product does not fall within the protection scope of the patent.
III. Link-Asia Smart remains committed to independent research and development and wins the market through technological innovation
Since its establishment, Link-Asia Smart has always regarded independent research and development and technological innovation as the cornerstone of its corporate development. The founder of Link-Asia Smart, Mr. Ma Shuanghua, previously served as a senior executive at SAFE-RUN. He has been deeply engaged in the tire equipment field for many years and was fully involved in the patent disputes between SAFE-RUN and VMI, gaining a profound understanding of the core value of intellectual property to enterprise development. For this very reason, Link-Asia has adhered to a fully independent R&D path since its inception, taking non-infringement of any third-party patents as a fundamental principle. It is one of the few Chinese companies in the industry that firmly persists in complete independent innovation, contributing to technological upgrading and progress in the industry. All the products involved in the present litigation were independently developed and designed by our company. The specific technical solutions of our products contain distinguishing features compared with the patented solutions involved in the case, and therefore do not constitute any infringement.
VMI’s decision to initiate this litigation also, from another perspective, reflects that our LAPC series tire building machines, by virtue of their outstanding performance and stability, have already gained the capability to compete on the same stage with international industry leaders. This is a recognition of years of hard work by our technical team and further strengthens our determination to continue investing in research and development and to promote the advancement of Chinese tire equipment technology.
IV. Actively respond to the litigation and firmly safeguard the company’s lawful rights and interests
The essence of the intellectual property system is to encourage innovation and regulate unfair competition, rather than to serve as a tool for certain companies to restrain technological progress in the industry or suppress domestic competitors. In response to this litigation, our company has established a professional legal and technical team and will take all necessary legal measures to respond actively and firmly safeguard the company’s lawful rights and interests, and commercial reputation. We respect and support intellectual property protection carried out in accordance with the law, but we firmly oppose any conduct that may constitute an abuse of litigation rights or that intends to interfere with the normal order of market competition through litigation.
We reserve the right to pursue, in accordance with the law, claims for related reasonable expenses and loss of goodwill arising from VMI Holland BV’s possible insufficient pre-litigation assessment and improper initiation of procedures in this case, as well as its acts of unfair competition by making inaccurate and exaggerated statements within the industry after filing the lawsuits.
We also urge VMI to fully recognize its improper conduct, immediately withdraw the lawsuits against Link-Asia and Tianji Tyre, and issue a clarification and apology for its inappropriate actions.
V. Commitment to our customers and partners
Our company hereby solemnly commits that we will continue, as always, to provide customers with high-quality innovative products and services, ensuring that the lawful rights and interests of every customer are not harmed.
We sincerely thank all customers, partners, and friends from all sectors of society for long-standing trust and support for Link-Asia Smart. Link-Asia Smart will continue to focus on technological innovation and product improvement, and work together with industry peers to jointly maintain an open, fair and orderly market competition environment.
This statement is hereby issued.
Link-Asia Smart Technology (Suzhou) Co., Ltd.
April 1, 2026
