*NEWS*CHINA CTG MAKER CONTRADICTS EPSON

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Date: Monday April 3, 2006 01:15:00 pm
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    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.

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