Phony Paul Frank pajamas seized at port

Nearly 15,000 pairs of phony Paul Frank pajamas worth nearly $100,000 were found and confiscated at the Los Angeles-Long Beach Port, federal authorities announced Tuesday.

The seizure of the pajamas imprinted with cuddly characters such as Blue Julius, Red Scurvy, Purple Scurvy and Pink Scurvy were found Oct. 13 in a shipment that arrived from Indonesia, said Jaime Ruiz, spokesman for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security Customs and Border Protection (CBP).

Costa Mesa-based Paul Frank was founded in Huntington Beach.

In addition to violating intellectual property rights, Ruiz said the children’s sleepwear failed to comply with U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) flammability standards, requiring that children’s sleepwear between size 9 and 14 be “flame-resistant, self-extinguishable and pass ‘tight fitting’ tests.”

Customs agents put the estimated value of pajama knockoffs at $92,700. In contrast, the real goods in a comparable shipment would have been worth about $537,000, authorities said.

“Piratical merchandise robs U.S. companies of their original ideas, innovations and revenue,” said Todd C. Owen, CBP director of Los Angeles field operations, in a statement.

— LATimes.com

Twitter: @latimes