CHINESE INK CTG MAKER CONTRADICTS EPSON

[Anonymous]

Chinese Ink Cartridge Makers Contradict Epson
APRIL
2006 –The lawsuit that Epson filed in the United States against
Chinese ink cartridge manufacturers seems to take a favorable turn for
the defendants.
“We
will publish advertisements on media to give publicity to our
independently developed products next week,” revealed a top executive
of Ninestar Image Co., Ltd. Epson’s ink cartridges also infringes on a
patent of Ninestar Image, and the latter has collected enough evidences
to wrestle with Epson, according to the executive.
Japan-based
Epson, along with its two subsidiaries in the United States, filed a
lawsuit against 24 Chinese, German, and South Korean cartridge makers
to the United States International Trade Commission (ITC) in light of
regulations of United States’ 1930 Tariff Law and Article 337 of its
amendment, saying that their products impinged on nine patents of the
United States. The three plaintiffs required ITC to launch the Section
337 investigations on these products involved and to issue the “General
Exclusion Order”. ITC has placed the case on file for investigation and
prosecution on March 21 this year.
“It seems that Epson has not
changed its manufacturing method yet,” said the executive, who looked
not so worried about the accusation of patent infringement as the other
Chinese ink cartridge companies involved in the case.
Since Epson
possesses the core technology of ink cartridge products, Ninestar
Image, in order to make its products compatible with Epson’s, adopts
the patent technology of Epson in some of its products, according to
sources.
However, Epson also applies a patent belonging to Ninestar
Image in several models of its products, but it is still unconscious of
the patent infringement, revealed the executive. In an excuse of
commercial confidentiality, he refused to disclose which patent was
infringed on by Epson.
Ninestar Image has employed two famous law
offices in New York and Beijing separately to contradict the accusation
of Epson. Based on the mutual infringement of patents, Ninestar Image
is completely able to make application to ITC for selective exclusion.
If
Epson also impinged on the intellectual property right of Ninestar
Image, the situation will turn in the favor of Ninestar Image
definitely, said Cai Xiaomin, a director from the Guangdong Merchants
Association.
Most of Chinese ink cartridge makers not only pay no
attention to the protection of intellectual property rights, but also
wage price wars in the compatible ink cartridge market, according to
industrial authorities. The immediate consequence is that ink cartridge
prices drop sharply and a lot of companies are on the verge of losses.
The
top executive of Ninestar Image pointed out that after the Section 337
investigations, the Chinese ink cartridge market would undergo a
reshuffling for sure, and some companies attaching no importance to
protecting intellectual property rights will be phased out possibly.
About Ninestar Image
Ninestar
Image Co., Ltd. is a solely foreign invested company engaged in the
production of printer consumables. With a total staff of over 2,000 it
is committed to providing high- quality products and services to
customers all over the world.
Currently, Ninestar offers 10 ranges,
1,000 items of G&G printer consumables to renowned brands, such as
Epson, Canon, HP, Lexmark, Xerox and Brother, including compatible
inkjet cartridges for desktop printers, laser toner cartridges,
cartridges for large format printers, refill kits, ribbon, toner, CDR,
floppy, photo paper, remanufactured inkjet cartridges, and
remanufactured laser toner cartridges. Now the production capability of
inkjet cartridges can reach 10 million per month and that of laser
toner cartridges 150, 000 per month

[Author]

April 3, 2006 at 1:18 PM