Gymnastics coach Gemma Coles spent a year developing Shuffle Up!, a gymnastics conditioning card game which aims to make exercise fun.

Gemma Coles with her games (top) and the Chinese AI game (bottom) (Image: ZacharyCulpin/BNPS)

The game has mainly been sold through her own website and on Amazon in the UK and US for six years.

To her horror she found an almost identical counterfeit version by a Chinese company being sold for a cheaper price on Amazon.

Side by side comparisons show the Chinese company copied every detail of Gemma’s game – colours, fonts, pictures, wording. The figures demonstrating the moves even have identical leotards.

Gemma Coles’ game (left) and the Chinese AI game (right) (Image: ZacharyCulpin/BNPS)

Game names were slightly altered, such as ‘Minute of Madness’ to ‘Mad Minutes’, but the company Woo Toys even brazenly put Gemma’s name on the box.

Where Gemma’s game costs £23.99, the rip-off version costs £19.99 but has been as low as £9.99.

Gemma reported the IP infringement to Amazon but she was told she would need to buy the fake product and send them proof of what Woo Toys had copied.

Her complaint was initially rejected by the online retail giant because the Chinese company had changed the game’s name.

Gemma Coles game (left) and the Chinese AI game (right) (Image: ZacharyCulpin/BNPS)

But a further review found that because the counterfeit version had Gemma’s name on the box it violated Amazon’s rules on personality rights.

It was finally removed from sale after approximately six weeks.

Gemma, a mother-of-three from Wimborne, is grateful to Amazon for dealing with the issue but fears another AI product will just pop up again soon after under another name.

The 45-year-old said: “We sell our game mainly on our own website and through Amazon in the UK and US.

“We advertise against similar gymnastic items such as bars and beams so we were researching those and found this other product that looked so similar to ours.

“They have used every single one of my games and every single sentence but changed the odd word – like changing stomach to abdomen and bottom to glutes.

“They’ve used all my rep ranges and levels, all my pictures are the same but they’ve changed them for animated characters, they even have the same looking leotards.

“They have even used my name on the box. It’s absolutely bonkers.”

Gemma said the case highlights the new problem of unscrupulous companies using AI technology to rip-off copyrighted products and said legislation needs to catch up with it.

She said: “I think it’s quite a new problem. In the past it would have taken quite a lot of work for someone to copy your product, but now I think they can just scan it all and put it into AI and it’s probably done within a day.

“I think they just put into AI ‘change this enough to pass US and UK copyright laws’ and the legislation just isn’t there yet because this AI thing is so new.

“There’s a little part of you that thinks AI is quite impressive but I also think if we are not careful AI is going to zap the real feel out of products.

“If someone produced a fun sports game of a similar type you would admire that as healthy competition, but for them to just take every part of your idea is just appalling.

“I’m not going to give up, I’m not going to let them ruin all these years of hard work.”

The gymnastics game was launched in 2019 and the company are currently looking at getting it into retail spaces as well as online sales.

Amazon UK has been approached for comment but have now removed the game.