Police Raid CeBIT Expo

Geman police raided the CeBIT Expo in Hanover, Germany, on its last day due to complaints of copyright infringement.

You can get excitement at trade shows, but usually nothing like this. As the CeBIT Expo was getting ready to close on Sunday, it was raided by German police, according to AP. With 180 officers in the building, 51 exhibitors were targeted. Police claimed the raid was in response to the "number of criminal complaints by the holders ofpatent rights in the run-up to CeBIT has been rising for years". AP reported that 24 of the raided stands were from Chinese companies, 12 from Taiwan, nine from Germany, three from Honk Kong,with one each from Poland, Holland and Korea.
The police took away 68 boxes of items, including digital picture frames and mobiles phones. The alleged patent infringements cover MP3 and MP4 and DVD players, among other things.